Before Beasts, There Was Metal
by LoweFantasy
Summary: Just before Tala moves in with Kai, he sends a warning to flee. The leftovers of Cain's plan is about to plunge Japan into nuclear warfare. That's easier said than done when you and the girl you love have huge, useless wings and are essentially hunted, bit-beast creating aliens. Life was so much easier when all he had to worry about was his past as a Beyblade assassin.
1. Previously

_What happened in previous books..._

Kai has kept it a secret from his team that what the Abbey had really been training him into wasn't just to become a beyblading pawn to his grandfather, but as a ninja-like, beyblade armed assassin. Kai has killed before, but intends to keep his skill and past buried and forgotten-until an unknown beyblader and a mysterious girl sing out, not only Tyson and Max's bitbeasts, but their souls as well. The singing girl, named Ayah, turns out to be just as much a prisoner as Tyson and Max's souls and nearly dies when she tries to avoid stealing Ray's soul as well. Not knowing she has survived, her captors leave Ayah alone long enough to give Kai a map to Tyson and Max's souls, to which he uses his bad-a beyblade assassin's skills to break in, slice the Achilles tendons of guards, avoid armed men, and escape with the souls and bitbeasts of his team mates.

In the second book, Kai has hopes that his incursion has been unnoticed, but he is soon distracted by his teammates adoption of the abandoned, injured Ayah, who is as beautiful as she is mysterious. Kai is not so quick to forget her inhuman abilities to control sound and sing out human souls. It doesn't help that he finds he isn't as immune as he'd like to be to her beauty and kindness, which he attributes to her inhuman qualities. When Tyson throws a homemade tournament for his birthday, Kai pays little attention to it, until Ayah leads him to a dark flight of stairs where another assassin, trained in the Abbey just as Kai was, is closing in for their kill. At the last minute Kai smashes their sharp assassin beyblades with Dranzer, but in the fight something strange happens and Kai is overwhelmed by Dranzer's explosion of flame. Ayah insists she just heard something with her strange, ultra sharp hearing, but as the flames die down and Kai finds himself once more in her arms, he finds himself trusting her less than ever. Nothing will harm his teammates, even if they happen to be gorgeous, gentle, and soft.

Come the opening of the third book, Kai is in the hospital suffering from severe burns. He demands to know what his ex-fellow Abbey assassins had to do with Ayah, and she doesn't know, but she is determined to stop them from harming the BladeBreakers. She offers to heal Kai, and in the process, lures him into a three day slumber. When he wakes up, not only is Ayah gone, his burns have completely healed, the president of the United States has been assassinated, and another assassin is waiting for him.

Kai is kidnapped and taken to a secret, underground bunker held by none other than a winged man who claims to be of the same species as Ayah, and who intends to use the abandoned Abbey assassins to clear the world of humankind so his own can flourish. Ayah is to be his Eve. But Kai, not keen on being anyone's captive, smashes his way to Ayah with the help of the also captive Tala. What Ayah and this...black angel are is made clear and Kai must defeat Cain, who so easily cowed the once fearless Abbey assassin's with his ability to kill if anyone on Earth is to survive. With the help of the Bladebreakers (who appear out of the blue because they're obsessive-compulsive friends like that and aren't likely to leave one of their own in trouble), along with the boosting ability of Ayah's voice, Kai burns Cain to death, but at the cost of burning himself as well.

In the fourth book, Kai comes to in the opposite state he blacked out in-freezing to death, and on a boat heading back for the mainland. Before his companions can celebrate, Max suddenly dives overboard and vanishes into the ocean. The others rush to the hospital, and Kai, always the lone wolf and only wanting to be warm, dodges going and head back to the dojo, where he, in a fit of desperation on finding water makes it worse, starts a fire and dives into it. He wakes up a scarlet, winged denizen of fire, to the surprise and delight of Tyson and Ray, who thought him and Max dead. Ayah also goes through drastic transformations. Since Kai can't find Dranzer, he figures they have become one, and tries to dissuade an excited Tyson that turning into a flying, inhuman freak isn't as cool as it sounds. Kai, and possibly the still missing Max, will never lead normal lives. Cain and the assassination of Ayah's family are already testaments that there is no room in the world for the kind of beings they have become.

Of course Kai has no time or patience to deal with his newly discovered feelings for Ayah. He already knows a man raised from a boy for cruelty and killing could never have the tenderness to make a woman happy, let alone a family. So what more is there to say?

 _Now on to the fifth installment of_ _ **Before Beasts**_ _..._


	2. Beasts Series Order

**Order of the "Before Beasts" series:**

 _Sound_  
 _Fire_  
 _Wind_  
 _Water_  
 _Metal_  
 _Storms_  
 _Lightning_  
 _Ice_  
 _Light_  
 _Time_


	3. Getting Fit For Life

Book 5

Before Beasts, There Was Metal

By Lowe Fantasy

1

Getting back into shape was harder than Kai Hiwatari anticipated. Much harder.

First, there was the obvious emaciation from his transformation. Gaining weight, especially muscle, was harder than most people knew. Getting over the initial weakness he knew.

But then there was the weight of his new wings that threw his balance all over the place—and they were still growing. He didn't think they could grow any bigger until he noticed ash-gray tips to his elongated feathers. His tail feathers also grew longer, though they didn't add enough weight to make learning how to balance himself as a freaking bird person any easier.

So, once he stopped falling on his face whenever he stepped funny or tried to jog, there was the pain of his bones, now most likely hollow like Ayah's. Kenny and Dizzy hadn't been kidding when they said hollow bones were NOT made for high impact activities, running being one of them. Since running was the best way to build up one's endurance as well as strength, and the quickest, Kai made a good effort to do it anyways and ended up crippling himself for day.

But he had always been a creative sort. It would just take finding a spot where he could be unseen and alone—another thing he was quite good at. He could take his pick: the old junk yard warehouse, that spot of beach you could only reach by doing some rock climbing at low-tide, etc.

So, early in the morning in the hours Tyson called 'ungodly,' Kai would shuffle to one of his secret training spots, take off his trench coat, and practice flapping his wings.

At first it was excruciating. His new wings had never been worked before, nor had his body ever had to deal with the pressure. He'd collapse, breathe through the pain, and start again. This sort of work he was use to. He knew what to expect. It didn't make the throwing up any less unpleasant, especially since it didn't seem like his new appetite wasn't easing anytime soon.

Which presented his next problem.

Kai fingered the last bills on the floor of his apartment, which had somehow become more cluttered since he'd grown wings. His grandfather's checks were always on time, given they had been set up in advance, but he only had three months left until his birthday in December. The months were getting colder, which meant he'd probably end up eating more. The college semester would start in the spring as well, and since his grandfather's name followed him like a bad smell, no one would offer him financial aid. Why should they? Voltaire was rich, wasn't he?

Not to mention that Tala had sent him the word that he would be taking up Kai's invitation to move in that weekend, having taken the month to see to some last minute business of his. That meant the money would have to stretch two mouths until Tala and him could find someone who wouldn't be scared off enough by their intimidating air to hire them.

He dropped the bills with a sigh. Three days of food—if he tried to be conservative. It was Wednesday, so two days since Tala would be there Saturday. But he had just built up his strength enough to actually start moving bits of wood with the wind force of his wings in the old warehouse. He could even begin to see growth in his biceps, thank god.

"Great time to turn into a winged freak," he muttered to himself, running a hand through his thick hair. He needed a haircut. Not to mention a bath—he sniffed—in a bad way. This would be a really great time for his grandfather to keel over. Maybe he could write the Blue Dolphin, ask how the old man's health was coming along.

He stuffed the bills into his pocket and shuffled about for some clean clothes, but found there were none and groaned. Laundry. Why did being alive have to cost so much?

That was it, then. He couldn't do any job interviews smelling like the sewer, nor could he go applying for scholarship interviews with all his clothes smelling the same.

"Gramps did say I was welcome anytime…"

Which brought him, after a month long hiatus, back to the Granger Dojo's doorstep. He didn't know whether to smile as an odd feeling of home washed over him, or start bemoaning the fact that he somehow always found his way back here. But that just proved to him once more what he both loved and envied about Tyson.

Though he was also uncomfortable because he had come when he knew Tyson would still be in school and Grandpa Granger at his day job. He told himself they wouldn't mind him just taking a shower and washing his clothes. In fact, Tyson would probably be delighted at this new development in Kai actually acting on their 'friendship' rather than pretending it didn't exist like he usually did.

That didn't exactly make him feel any better. So he made sure to get a good whiff of himself to push himself through the door. He slid off his shoes, heart beating more anxiously than he cared. He'd heard of friends doing this all the time, but he'd never done it before. He'd never had a friend he could.

"Kai?"

Zip. Electroshock. Of course he hadn't forgotten about her. How could he when his damn brain refused to stop popping her into his thoughts like a bad ear worm?

"My place doesn't have a shower, I need to do laundry, and my budget's out for the week," he said quickly, not looking through the open doorway of the dojo. "Mr. Granger said I was welcome. I'll be here and gone—"

And then the last thing he expected occurred. Cinnamon bun and roses assaulted his nose and her soft arms were thrown about his neck. He had no choice but to look at her now, and having not seen her for a month meant he had lost his carefully built up immunity to her beauty. Her own white wings had fluttered out a bit in her eagerness, and the sunlight playing off the dojo floor reflected up on her feathers, bringing them out like white clouds in the sun after a storm.

Then the moment vanished as she recoiled from him, beautiful face twisted in disgust.

"You really do need a shower."

He did his best to hide the affect she'd had on him by giving her his usual droll glare. He rolled his laundry bag off his shoulder and set it next to the door as he went to take off his trench coat. It had gotten even tighter since his growth. He'd have to get a new one soon. Just another expense.

"I missed you."

He made sure not to look at her. "Hn."

"You left before I could apologize for…a lot. Gosh, where should I begin?"

"Don't."

"Right. It'd just…yeah…"

Kai fled—though he would have never called it so. Kai Hiwatari did not flee anyone or anything. He walked away with such a surety of purpose that no one would think to stop him. It wasn't till he was in the bathroom that his head cooled and he remembered that he was going to do his laundry first so he had a set of clean clothes to change into. He groaned and put his forehead to the wall.

Okay, change of plans. He could wash his clothes in the effing river…ugh, he'd need soap and who knows what kind of crap is in the water—

Screw it. It was just a girl. He had to learn to deal with her sooner or later.

After all, they were now the same species, and the last of their kind.

Flushing the toilet and washing his hands to hide the fact that he had just run into there for no reason, he came out and walked down the hall to find his laundry bag gone from besides his shoes. He ran his hand down his face and made his way to the closet near the back of the house, next door to the kitchen, where the Granger's kept their washer and dryer. Just as he dreaded, Ayah was there, tipping the last of his clothes into the washer machine. He had to appreciate the odd image she made: an white-winged angel in a pink halter top and jeans doing housework.

She caught sight of him and flinched.

"I-I didn't stare at your underwear or anything!"

He blinked. What had he been going to say? How dare you do my laundry?

And he found himself smiling. To have that be the first thing she blurted out—a chuckle escaped his lips. That little bit of mirth was all it took to break down his nerves and send that warmth flooding through his veins.

Ayah…

"Has your strength returned?" he asked.

She fumbled for the cupboard and took down some laundry detergent. A bit of pink dusted her nose. "I can get around fine, I guess. Though I have no idea where to start on this whole flying thing…you? I mean, you look a lot better, if not smell better."

She was trying to joke with him. He tried to smile better to show he knew that, but was afraid his desire to say something funny and witty in return would screw it up, so he settled for saying nothing as he rubbed his folded wings over one another and debated on pulling his tail feathers free from his loose pant legs. For some reason, he wanted her to see them, especially since he could see her own tail feathers free and white from a slit cut just beneath her belt loops. They were nowhere near as long as his, but it worked better that way, as they flared out just above her well curved behind.

He cleared his throat and averted his eyes as she finished pouring in the detergent and switching the settings. He wasn't use to this. Romance and attraction to girls just hadn't been as high of priority for him. Sure he'd eyeballed a few dames in his world tours with the rest of his team, and…other things he was moderately sure any boy dabbled in, but he'd thought himself above viewing pornography and had never bothered to research or pay attention into courting girls.

Wait…what was he even thinking about? He didn't want a romance with Ayah. He had already established long ago that, regardless of his feelings, what he wanted most was for her to be happy, and he did not make people happy. He was raised by an abusive dictator, and logic said that in any intimate relationship he was likely to be the same. He knew nothing else.

"Kai?"

He blinked at her. How long had he been standing there, starting out into space? She had already closed the laundry doors.

"You say something?" he asked.

"Would you like me to dig out some of Tyson's clothes for you to wear after a shower? Just while your clothes are cleaning."

That would definitely spare him the humiliation of figuring out what to do around her while he smelled like this. "I can do that. You're not his housewife."

She ducked her chin self-consciously. "I-I've sort of rearrange things—I don't have anything better to do since I can't go to school…not that I don't mind! I'm really…oh forget it." The pink on her nose had grown across her cheeks and forehead. Before he could figure out whether he'd said something wrong or even why this situation had suddenly gotten so weirdly awkward, she shuffled around the corner and up the stairs. Since he didn't know whether she was going to hide in her room or fetch clothes, he followed her, just to catch sight of her through Tyson's bedroom's open door as she searched through his dresser.

And what he saw would have made anyone pause.

Tyson Granger's room, probably for the first time in its life, was immaculate.

 _She's wasted on him_ , he caught himself thinking and shook his head.

"Max," he blurted out. "Have you heard back from him yet?"

"Not yet," she said, pulling out a dark red shirt and pants. "It's…troubling, but his father called back to reassure us he was okay, probably because Tyson wouldn't stop calling. He's closed his shop so we can only assume that the whole family is out of town."

Kai nodded. He couldn't get enough of how weird Tyson's room looked. Wait, had the guy always owned that baby-blue rug? "Ray's back home, I take it?"

"Um, yeah. Tyson wanted to look for Drigger but I think Ray's sort of…given up." She paused over the top drawer, before snatching out some boxers and socks and wrapping the whole bundle in the jeans. She turned with something of a forced smile. "Tyson says Drigger's come back from worse things than a bunch of water, so it'll turn out. I hope." The smile faded and she wilted, looking down at the clothes bundle in her arms. "I really, really want them to be happy."

A strange sense of unease twined in his stomach. He couldn't tell if it was because of the news on his teammates or because she had echoed his desire for her happiness towards his other teammates.

He took the clothes from her with a murmured thank you and went off to relieve the world of his stench.

 **IMPORTANT! I've gotten my first fanfic audiobook on Youtube up for ya'll. ^.^ I'll also be looking up sites for fanfiction audiobooks to upload the audio on to there to, for those of you who would rather not have to pull up Youtube to download your books. ^.^ I plan on updating those audiobooks every week, just like I do with my stories on here, so stay tuned! I hope you like it. And I don't think I'm half bad at reading. I use to do it all the time for my siblings and do for my husband now. But if my voice annoys you, let me know so I can find someone else.**


	4. A Way to a Man's Heart

**Heat makes my brain turn to mush.**

2

She had tea and a large plate of curry waiting for him in the kitchen when he got out. He had followed the scent of food (something that he seemed to always want nowadays), and found her munching away at her own plate with another right next to her. She gestured to it with her chin, as her mouth was full, to show it was for him, so he sat down with a quiet thank you. Tyson would have had seizures hearing so much gratitude from him.

They ate in quiet. He couldn't help himself from stealing a few glances of her. He dared any man not to. About the third time, however, he caught her glancing up at him as well. She flushed and turned back to her curry before she could have spot the heat crawling up to his face as well.

"Sorry! I never got the chance to see your feathers, the gray at the tips—I mean, I was kind of…" She turned her face even further to hide her face behind her hair, even trailing a bit in her curry. "You're beautiful."

A hot chill ran up his spine and his stomach did a giddy twist behind his ribs. Had she just…did that mean he should say he found her beautiful too? Wait, was beautiful even the right thing to say to a freak guy like him? But then, he wouldn't be a freak to her…

Damn it…it still didn't matter.

Sighing to himself, he reached out and pulled the lock of white hair that had fallen into her curry. She jerked around to see what he was doing and her face turned even more red, if possible.

"Stupid hair," she grabbed a cloth from the stove to rub it. "Would you believe me if I said Tyson and Grandpa don't have a single hair band? They tie back their mop heads with whatever torn piece of fabric they can get their hands on. Like they'd ever had to deal with this much…"

Kai reached into his pocket for a hair band. He had found them useful in keeping his ever lengthening tail feathers in a bundle easy enough to stuff down his pants. Without a word he stood and walked behind her, where he cautiously scooped back her hair. He didn't know what pushed him to take the initiative to be in close contact with another being. Perhaps it had been because he had seen her naked, even helped bathe her, so such boundaries were hard to replace. But she didn't seem to mind, so he gingerly pulled back her soft, satin smooth waves into a loose (maybe even too loose because he feared pulling at her hair) ponytail.

"Thank you," she said, giving him a smile over her shoulder.

He shrugged. "Tail feathers." He meant to explain more than that, but his voice was even harder to find than usual.

"Really? Are they that long?"

Her eyes went down and, since he knew for sure he was so not going to unzip his pants and pull out his tail, he robot-marched to his seat and started scarfing down food as though nothing had happened. He should have taken a longer shower; used up all of Tyson's hot water, anything.

"Ray told me he saw you breathe fire," she said, rather lamely, as though she herself was having a problem coming up with conversation topics.

He shrugged, lucky to have his mouth full. He planned on pretending to take a nap somewhere or puppy-guarding the laundry after this.

Ayah fiddled with a piece of potato in her curry. "Kai, why are you so afraid of me? I can think of reasons but my father always told me not to assume and…if it's because of what happened back in that room of Cain's, I promise I won't do it again."

"I'm not afraid of you," he said most stoutly, which was true…right? "Just how much can you hear? What makes you think I'm afraid?"

"Your heartbeat," she said. "And your breathing. And…well, there are certain kinds of 'alarms' I guess you can say that I can hear from the human body, beneath the sound of the heartbeat and breathing. One is when the body is injured, and if said person's heart rate happens to be up, it increases the blood flow and makes the alarm easier for me to hear. The other alarm also happens when the blood flow is sped up, but it's usually something like…potential. Like the whole body starts to hum with pent up energy in case they need to run or fight or use it for something, which is what happens when someone is stressed or afraid, right?" Her brow wrinkled and her eyes widened with earnestness. "Right now it's that second kind of alarm with you. You're all pent up for something. Though…you're usually pent up like that, so I guess I was just getting jumpy when I heard it pick up around me…"

He snorted. "So, essentially it's not too accurate. You don't just hear when someone is afraid, you hear it when their body is under stress."

"Unless they speak on it," she said. "I mean, you don't have to have hearing like mine to hear things in people's voices. That's what voices are for, after all: communicating. Expression." She cocked her head to the side, giving a gentler edge to the way she looked at him. "It was the fear in your voice on the ship that woke me up. I don't want you to be afraid, Kai. I've heard the alarms going off in your body since I met you, and no body, human or otherwise, can live that twisted up and loud for too long. It'll make you sick."

He shrugged. "Not much I can do about that. It's the way they made me."

"You're the one who makes you."

"Then maybe they gave me really good reason to be this way." He swallowed the last bite and stood to take his plate to the sink. "Either way, it's none of your business, so stop worrying. There's nothing for you to do."

"I can't always control what I feel."

"But you can choose what you do with it." He turned about, drying his hands on a rag. "Back to your original question, though: I use to be afraid of you. I didn't trust you, and I think you already know why. But I'm not afraid of you anymore." He hesitated. "What you're hearing is probably discomfort. I don't much care for being around people."

He hoped she left it at that, but her eyes locked him in place long enough for her to ask why. For someone who said they wanted him to not feel nervous or stressed anymore, she was doing a smashing good job of doing just that by putting him on the spot like this. God, he hated questions about himself. There was this huge gray nebulous of answers that could be wrong, right, neither, or partially one or the other, and he preferred his world to be black and white. Not to mention he didn't want anyone's opinion on himself, which would just blur the lines even more.

"I just am," he said. "People aren't exactly comforting."

She stilled and turned her blue gaze away. "I suppose you're right…is there any way I could be comforting? So you're not nervous around me."

"Look, I'd rather not talk about my feelings, and either way I don't think there's anything you can do. It's just who I am."

He put down the towel and left to check the laundry for how much time was left, then headed for the backyard to get some air. It was good to feel the late September sun on his feathers. That trench coat could suffocate the life out of anyone if worn for so long.

He stayed out in the sun, occasionally stretching out his wings for a lazy flap, letting his mind wander and listening to the sounds of the slow suburb traffic outside the dojo walls. He kept his senses peeled for intruders in the case he needed to hide himself, but mostly he just daydreamed of a place where he could wander free, or even of the life he could have had if he hadn't have gone weird. But then that led to what if he had never met Ayah. Ayah had started all of this. Ayah was the reason he was what he was.

And she knew it. He didn't need special hearing to see her unease about him as well, and she had many reasons to be uneasy.

This thought made him sigh. He had been so preoccupied with his own discomfort that he hadn't even stopped to think about hers. Just added another nail into the coffin of why he must never become intimate with her. Tyson could handle him half the time, but even Tyson had never gotten too close. No one had.

He put a hand to his brow, a forefinger and thumb to his temples. "I really am afraid of everything."

Pathetic.

Eventually, he heard the timer beep and went inside to throw his clothes into the dryer. Ayah almost beat him to it, but they caught each other in the hallways instead, where they looked at each other awkwardly until her face turned pink and she put her hands up to hide it. He frowned as he opened the washer machine lid.

"I guess I don't have to ask why you're so nervous around me, then." He chucked in the first armful of damp cloth. "Will you actually listen to me if I say the whole…hatching, slime, naked episode really doesn't matter?"

She groaned and replaced her hands on her face with her arms. "Why'd you have to mention that?"

"What? You have other reasons?" He closed the washer machine with a clang. "I'm not threatening you anymore, and even when I did you didn't seem too phased by that."

"Do you even have to ask?"

"You said something about not assuming." In with the fabric softener. Smelled of lavender, the same scent as El 'la Tyson's oddly clean bed.

"I…I tried to get you to sleep with me…"

He snorted. "Yeah, your mind was about as clear as it was when you were unconscious and covered in ooze—"

"I was thinking plenty clearly!"

Her sharpness caught him off guard. She had even dropped her arms to reveal her face, despite the pink flush to her cheeks. It only lasted a few moments though before she wavered beneath his gaze and looked away.

"Think whatever you want of me for doing that, but don't take it lightly. I knew exactly what I was doing. I honestly thought you would die if you faced him, along with everyone else, because I had given it all I could to use my powers to fight him when he-but-"

"Stop." He didn't want to hear anymore. He started the dryer. He hadn't meant to hurt her, but he supposed it was inevitable.

"I'm sorry, you didn't want to hear that—oh, why did I even mention that?" She covered her face with her hands again and even sank down to the floor, her tail feathers broadening as though to stop a decent in flight.

"Stop that too," he mumbled. When she didn't stand up, he sighed, and dropped down in front of her as well. When she didn't drop her hands, even after he asked her too, he figured it wouldn't affect her hearing anyways. "Look, we survived. It's over. We did what we had to. If I make you nervous, fine. I don't need you to be comfortable around me anyways. I just came here to do my laundry, not to clear any air."

"I know. But I want to know you." She looked up, and he could see through her fingers that she had steeled herself to look into his eyes. "I want to be close to you, whether you want it or not. Or, no, what I mean is—well, if you don't want to be friends or—I mean, I wasn't trying to get close because of what you were acting or saying, crap, but I guess I was, or—"

His chuckle caught them both off guard. Somewhere among all the heat flooding to his skin and stoking the flames in his gut, something ridiculously happy bubbled up to his mouth. It made no sense. He knew he shouldn't feel like this. But she made him feel all sorts of stuff that defied logic.

"I get what you're saying," he pushed out. "But I'm afraid you're under some misunderstanding. I have nothing to offer you. I don't know if you've noticed, but I don't make the most happy of friend. If you need beyblade training or some fire, I suppose so, but I think what you're looking for is a bit different from that."

Now it was her turn to laugh, though it came out short and surprised. "Are you saying there's nothing likable about you? Why can't I just like you for the sake of it?"

The heat in his face was increasing, and his stupid insides wouldn't stop dancing. "I-I, ugh, look, don't make me spell it out—"

"You have to get something out of relationships and you're saying you don't have anything to give," she said. "I can hear you, Kai, and all we've had up to this point is you growling at me and me screwing things up for you, but you don't know what I see, so don't try to decide it for me. I think you have plenty to offer."

He gave her his most blank stare, which, for some reason, amused her. She hopped closer to him and bent her head in, almost conspiratorially. Thoughts of kissing her threw his thoughts into a mess.

"You're the only other winged person in the world. Let's practice flying."

He somehow managed to tug out something from the toppled remains of his coherent thought. "What about Max?"

"He doesn't have wings. He's managed to Skype with us a few times. He's all, like…armored, sort of, you'll have to see for yourself. His mom's been running tests to try and understand what's happened. It's just you and me." Her smile grew so wide he thought he might be able to see all her white teeth, and happy creases narrowed her eyes. "Besides, I could still technically be a threat to the others, right? You got to keep an eye on me if nothing else. I bet you even know some good spots we could practice."


	5. Flight Lessons

3

He never stood a chance of saying no to that. It almost terrified him, because every preconceived notion he had about himself was peeling out of his grip. He hated training with others, and yet he found nothing more pleasant sounding then idea of taking her to one of his secret places where no one would find them so they could make fools of themselves flapping about like clipped chickens.

Because that's what they ended up doing once he led her to the small rocky beach that could only be reached by climbing about a cliff during low tide. He didn't even have a shirt on, as he didn't feel too inclined to dismembering one of Tyson's shirts to accommodate his wings, and all his own clothes were still in the dryer. Their trench coats, Ayah's being Grandpa Granger's off-white monstrosity, were draped over a nearby rock, leaving them bare and winged in the early autumn breeze and ocean spray. He even, covertly as possible, slipped out his tail feathers, though the riding of Tyson's sweats beneath his tail wasn't exactly pleasant. Constant aviary wedgie.

Ayah's reaction to the sight of his long, graceful tail feathers, however, was worth it.

"They're so beautiful!" she cried, clapping her hands together. "And the gray at the end matches your hair!"

And then the flapping. She said she had practiced in Tyson's backyard, but it was obvious from the start that she hadn't the sort of insane drive that Kai had in achieving excellence—though it didn't really matter because they both ended up on their faces on the first try to get off the ground. A few fluffs of white and scarlet downy fluttered about them.

She spat out a mouthful of sand. "Ow."

"I think if we make sure we keep our heads up," he said. Forget training with others, this wasn't even training. He was so use to being a leader that he had forgotten what it was like to not have any idea of what he was doing.

"Yeah, I was definitely looking down at the ground that time. You trying to tell if you're feet leave the ground too, right?"

"…This is weird."

She laughed a curious high, trilling thing. It was unlike any sound he had ever heard her make.

" _We're_ weird!" she cried. "Come on! On three, we'll try again."

"How about one of us tries on our own and the other watches? For suggestions."

"Yeah! How about you first? I can still remember what it looked like to see my parents flying, so maybe I can use that."

This gave him pause as he lifted his wings. He wanted to ask, but she was already waiting, eyes bright with delighted expectation.

He crouched down first. Then, with all his strength, he jumped, flapping down at the same time. More downy feathers flew. He feared he'd hit the ground with his wings, fluttered, teetered, and with a burn of pectoral and dorsal muscles, managed to keep himself airborne for a precious few seconds before dropping back down. He couldn't help but be ridiculously pleased by the fact that he managed to land on his feet rather than his face this time.

She looked rightly impressed. "Wow. You actually almost had it. I think you're not reaching high enough, though. With your wings, that is. I think my dad said once you have to scoop up as much air as possible."

Again, he was curious. He wanted to ask about her parents and her siblings. Though, since he knew they were killed, he worried he'd touch some nerve and end up having to deal with her sobbing or revisiting unpleasant memories. He didn't do the whole comforting thing well, especially with girls. Boys you could yank to their feet, give them a pat on the back, and tell them 'that sucks' and it was done with. He didn't even know how to begin with the fairer sex.

"Try one more time. Then I'll take a turn."

He nodded, already beginning to feel the heat building up from exertion. He didn't sweat, however, as he had found rather early on in his practice that it took much more exertion on his part to actually work up a sweat, as his body could handle heat. Or, rather, he sweated heat. He had even seen the air ripple about him from the heat of his own breaths a few times. Best he warn her of that if it should ever get to that point.

The second time up, he did his best to add her notes and actually managed to start climbing higher before his muscles started to shriek in protest and he had to come back down with a loud 'thump' of feet against damp sand. Ayah cheered and clapped her hands, which made him blush with embarrassment. It wasn't that big of a deal.

The air started to ripple where he breathed. "Best you keep your distance."

She stopped clapping, concerned. "Why?"

"When I, uh, exert myself, I get hot—I mean, I give off heat. I don't want to burn you." Ah, god, did he really sound like that? When did he ever say 'uh'?

"Oh." She cocked her head to the side. "So I guess I wasn't just seeing things. I thought I saw your breath sort of…"

"Yeah."

She just looked at him for a moment, expression unreadable, as he caught his breath and sweated heat. Then she blinked hard and seem to come to.

"Okay, my turn."

He found himself inwardly chortling at her comical expression of concentration as she lifted her wings as high as they could go, her for-feathers stretched out like fingers and her tail feathers, short and utilitarian, spread out wide.

She managed to get off the ground, but since her endurance was poorer than Kai's, didn't manage to get any higher.

He did his best to give notes, but didn't have much to add. The only time he'd seen anyone fly was with Cain, and he had had other things on his mind.

Kai didn't manage to get any higher after that, as his muscles seemed to have given up for the day. This annoyed him, and he made even more fervent plans to get fit. Then he wondered when learning to fly had gotten so important. It wasn't like he could do anything with it that would fix any of his current problems.

He did, however, manage to get higher than Ayah on every jump.

"Maybe you're going higher because of the heat," she said breathlessly. "You know, hot air goes up."

He highly doubted that, but he didn't mention that. "What, you want me to breathe fire under you?"

He had meant it sarcastically, but she actually lit up as though he had caught on to something brilliant.

"No," he said.

"You don't have to breathe fire, just get some of that wavery heat around you over here. I mean, you should see you, you're like a furnace. I can feel you from here."

"How? You going to try and launch off of my shoulders?"

Her eyes darted to his shoulders then back, and he thought, with some smugness, that perhaps she wasn't immune to the fact that he was shirtless like he had thought. "Okay, maybe not such a great idea. Maybe we should find somewhere to jump off of."

"Forget it. Practice is all we need."

"Gliding is easy though! That's how birds learn how to do it. They just, you know, jump out of the nest and sort of glide down—"

"We're not birds."

She blinked hard at his interruption, then narrowed her eyes as she examined his face. He looked away, unnerved by the attention.

"Are you afraid?"

He snorted. "Are you trying to bait me? I'm not a child."

She smirked. "Thought so. If you were trying to hide it, you best be quiet. Voice gives away everything." She tapped her ear. "Remember? Come on. You should know a way up to the top of this…cliff thing, right? And there's trees and stuff up there, so we should be fairly hidden."

He groaned, all sorts of uncomfortable. Her hearing really did get on his nerves. Inwardly swearing to keep his mouth closed more often around her, he folded up his wings and went round to the opposite end of the beach. After poking his feet around to get a feel for his balance, he started to climb, remembering a narrow, steep walkway of sorts weaving up the rocks on the other side. It was naturally made, and the little spurt of rock top that Ayah referred to wasn't worth getting to, but he had taken it a time or two to think. There wasn't enough space for practicing since the grand three trees took up all the space, so he hadn't used it for much else.

They were more like weather beaten bushes than trees, he thought, as he clambered the last few feet of stone and gravel and grabbed on to one of the trunks.

"How you doing?" he asked over his shoulder. He could only make out the white hump of her wings.

"Fine."

Her voice wavered a bit, on the high side, and he frowned, but got busy with pulling himself up enough to turn and reach out his hand.

"Ayah."

She looked up, face flushed with exertion, saw his hand, and took hold of it. Even cold, dirty, and sweaty, the feel of her slim fingers being swallowed by his larger hand sent little dancing thrills up his back.

There was just enough room for them within the scraggily trees to sit and catch their breath.

"If I knew what I was asking for…" she started, slumping back on one of the three trunks and letting her wings hang out on either side.

He pulled back the corners of his mouth in chagrin. "Looks like gliding will be our only way down now. I can see your legs shaking."

"How come yours aren't? Are you just buff like that?"

"…Yeah."

"Ugh, you're just making it hotter. You're going to catch the trees on fire or something."

"Guess I'll go first, then." Using the last two trees, he pulled himself to his feet and crouched over the edge of the rock, taking a moment to take in what he was in for. The ocean spread out before him, metallic and bright in the sunlight, and their little gravely beach wasn't as far down as he would like. He needed to get enough air to fill up his wings, right? What if it wasn't a far enough drop to give the air time to slow him down and he ended up breaking his new, lighter bones? What if Ayah did?

He straightened. The trees were in the way. He'd have to drop first before opening his wings. That didn't help him feel any better.

"You can do it!" said Ayah.

"I don't need your encouragement."

"I think you do."

"Well I don't, so stop."

Luckily, she didn't say anything after that. Sensing her smiling gave him the irritation he needed to push through the last bit of his fear and jump.

For a nanosecond of time, he was surrounded by only air, once more just a normal, pre-Ayah Kai. The rocks, gravel, and water waited to smash him. He knew he was going to die. He knew he had just done the most idiotic thing ever.

And then he thought of Dranzer. Where had she gone? Had she really just become a part of him?

Then his wings snapped open.

The earth swooped beneath him. He didn't just go down—he went out, straight for the wide expanse of ocean, the bones of his wings locking into place, every muscle along his back straining with the sudden weight of his entire body. Air licked at him, cold, salty, fresh, and filling him whole to the brim.

And the Kai he knew blew away. He could feel the sky above him running its toes through his feathers like sand. He forgot about blading. He forgot about the nightmares, the stone Abbey, the hidden blood Tyson would never know about, his coming expenses, and his broad, unknowable, empty future.

He drifted out like that, paralyzed by euphoria, until the first splash of ocean spray woke him back up to the fact he was still sinking. He flapped desperately for the last few feet, longing to be back out in the freedom, knowing reality waited for him in the cold water, but the moment the first taste of ocean jumped to his feathers, he was down.

He had swam in the ocean countless times before. Back in the Abbey they had even forced them into the icy waters during the winter to train them in endurance. The summer waters of Japan were practically a warm bath compared to that.

Something had happened to him since Dranzer's fire had swallowed him, though. While the cold didn't knock him out with pain as it had on the ship, it still made his head spin and he found himself crawling to the surface with the desperate fury of a cat. He wanted out—he wanted out right now.

"Kai!"

He looked up just in time to see Ayah soaring above him, white pony-tail streaming out behind her and cheeks balled up from her smile. Sunlight backlighted her, making her glow like a cloud after the storm.

Then she closed her wings and dived in next to him, much like a seagull.

He was in no mood to frolic, however. The moment her head popped out of the water he was on his way back to shore. At least this weird, mutant body of his could still swim.

Luckily, they hadn't fallen as far as they could have. Kai had to go back and drag Ayah out of the surf, as her limbs seemed to have given out, after which they collapsed on the warm, gravely sand, spent.

But happy. More happy than he thought possible.


	6. War in The Air

**Had a dream last night that was Beyblade going mech suit genre. Dranzer, Dragoon, and all them were the mech suits, and the blade breakers the one who can work the mech suits, sort of in a Gundam Wing sort of dealeo. Man, the drama between Kai and Tyson when Kai dropped Dranzer in favor of 'the most powerful mech suit of all time' just because his grandpa said he was the only one that could...and then the epic show down and...yeah.**

4

"You guys have got to come! We'll pay for your tickets and everything!"

Max's voice piped up as cheery as always from Kenny's laptop, remarkably unchanged for the most part. His hair was the same bushy blond, and his freckles hadn't been moved. The only thing that they could see had resulted from Max's time missing among the ocean waves were the dull, reptilian like scales peeking out from his hairline to curve around the corner ridges of his eye sockets. Kai kept looking for wings Tyson and Kenny had already told him weren't there. Kai was interested in Max's story, but didn't really want to hear it from Kenny, who was sure to draw it out, and Tyson had been caught up with Max's call when he had gotten home with the beyblade genius.

"Course, Mom knows you have school and all, so if you could just let us know—"

"Are you kidding me?" cried Tyson. "Once I become an awesome dragon-scaley thing like you, who cares about school!"

Kai's ire snapped to attention. "Does your irresponsibility know no bounds?"

"Turn down the glare, dude. I've already heard it all from Hillary."

"Is that why she's been avoiding you?" asked Kenny from the other side of his laptop. "Tyson, how do you even know the same thing will happen to you as it did to Kai and Max?"

"That's what my Mom will be testing!" chirped Max. "We've gotten a hold of Ray too. He says the White Tigers are annoyed that he's leaving so soon after they got home, but he's really interested too. Just think of the possibilities! I can't even get started!"

Kai snorted. "Yeah. A whole group of homeless, teenage freaks. People will be trampling each other for tickets."

Max deflated. Kenny fidgeted. Tyson, however, whirled on Kai.

"Oy, Mr. Cool, you do realize Ayah can probably hear you, right?"

Kai inwardly flinched as he remembered Ayah, who was showering in the hallway behind them.

"She would know best of all," Kai said, undaunted. "Her whole family is dead just because of what they are. Have you even asked her what she thinks of you throwing yourself into that same lot?"

"He has a point," said Kenny shyly. "Those hunters that killed her family could still be out there."

"Ooo, people trying to kill us, like that hasn't happened before. Sign me up for the next flight, Maxie. I'm game!"

Max, who had four years of experience with Tyson's gung-ho, throw himself head first personality took it in stride. "It isn't all that bad, Kai. I can go out just fine."

Kai didn't grace that with an answer. He didn't know what other weirdness had happened to Max, but he knew whatever it was, it wasn't like hiding enormous and still growing wings under a trench coat, or having mile long tail-feathers stuffed down your pant-leg like an unseemly erection.

Children. Idiots. When would the day come that he didn't feel like he had to babysit them?

"You coming, Kai?" Max asked tentatively.

Did he have much of a choice? "Sure." And before Tyson could make some other stupid remark to irritate him further, Kai stood and made his way back to the dryer, which Tyson's arrival had stopped him from unloading. He'd get his clothes, get dressed, make sure Max would send the plane ticket information to his email, and go home. He, after all, had actual adulating to do.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when he turned the corner and Ayah was there, standing next to the dryer with his basket of clothes at her feet. She looked as though she had been waiting for him. Talk about quick showering. At least she had taken the time to dress—he shoved that thought out of his head, baffled as to why it was even there. Sometimes it didn't pay to be seventeen and male. Wait, it never did.

"You're right," she said quietly, eyes downcast.

He didn't need to ask why as he took up his clothes and waited.

"If I had known what it would do to you and Max, I would have never sung that song. I was okay being the last. It was a relief."

He sighed. "If I can't get away with a lie, you shouldn't be allowed to either."

Her smooth eyebrows rose. "What?"

"No one wants to be alone. You hear idiots celebrating being unique, but the truth is people would rather be clones; with everyone just like themselves." He raised an eyebrow at her. "Unless you're telling me you're not human enough to be that predictable."

She wavered, her lips twitching and arms crossing. "You have such an interesting way of saying things."

"I wonder from where you are saying that." He shifted his laundry to one hip. "From someone who has lived hidden among people or far away from them, isolated with her family, the last."

The twitching lips gave way to a soft smile that jerked his insides. She did that so easily to him. "You could just ask, you know."

"And put up with Tyson all that time? I don't think so. I'm going home."

She cocked her head, confused. "Don't you love him?"

He literally jumped, and she exploded in that same, trill like laughter he had heard before, somehow different from her usual mirth.

"I meant it as a friend," she added.

"Yeah, well," he shifted his laundry, eager to leave and wanting to stay. "I think your word choice is a bit wanting." _Yeah, don't say 'love' so easily_.

A bland, default ring from his pocket made her jump. He frowned as he slipped out his phone, a rather recent acquirement after losing his other one who knows where. Not expecting to recognize the number, only knowing a severely select few knew his own, he flipped it to his ear.

"Hiwatari."

" _It's Ivanov. I don't have much time, so don't talk. You need to get out of Japan, now."_

"Tala? What the hell, you expect me to listen to you with no explanation?"

" _I was getting to that if you'd just give me a second to breathe! Cain wasn't the idiot we thought him to be, and Russia and America's about to pull out some real shit, and before that happens you need to get out of Japan. The details aren't exactly clear, but I know there's a hidden arms factory there. Japan's breaking the treaty and Russia knows it—Cain made sure of it."_

Ayah had gone deathly still. "Arms?"

"I highly doubt that Japan's the only one," said Kai. "You're not doing a good job at convincing me to book it."

" _Then how about this: Russia knows who killed the American president, and they've traced it back to Cain's godforsaken Japanese island. They've got plans to fire, and since America is Japan's ally, we're looking at nuclear war. But if that's not enough to scare you into shitting yourself out of there,_ they know about us. _Japan does."_

That gave Kai pause. Something suffocating and cold clawed its way up to his throat.

"How?" he heard his mouth say.

" _Who do you think? The only thing Cain didn't do is put a strong enough firewall on his secrets. I've never met a more twisted mix of wit and stupidity in my life. Look, I know a ship that's leaving dock in three hours time, if you can slip on—"_

"Hold that thought, where are you?"

 _"Like I'd tell you that over an unsecured line. Look, don't worry your head about me, princess—_ "

"Just shut up and answer the damn question, be clever if you must, I can handle it."

 _"…just get out of there. I don't know when they're going to fire. But you need to get out before Japan pieces together that they're harboring several members of an illegal assassins ring—which is hilarious."_

Kai closed his eyes, a wry un-smile tightening his lips. He understood. It was one thing about their teachings in the abbey he did understand.

" _I can't tell you where I am, but I'll meet you…I'll meet you on Igarov's lakeside."_

There was a click and the line went dead.

Kai gave his smart phone one last look before slipping it back into his pocket and stepping past the weak-kneed Ayah.

"Kai, what does—what's nuclear? What's—"

"You better come too," he said quietly. He felt more than heard her bare feet padding behind him along the dojo floors as he re-entered the main practice room, where Tyson looked to be about to wrap things up on Skype.

"Hold it, Max."


	7. No One Likes Rejection

**I'm surprised how far this has gone. ^.^ What started as a pet project has grown up into something man-eating and winged. Thank you, all of you, for reading. It gives me so much pleasure to read your reviews.**

5

Since Kai insisted it was either sneak onto a cargo ship that night of pull together something fast, Max's irritated mother suggested that if he was set on being an idiot, he might as well call some friends of hers hitching a ride on a freighter for some affordable research. She even bumped Max off to give Kai an earful about waiting just one damn week instead of being an impatient, head strong teenager who believed his fellow head-strong teenager's conspiracy theory, but once Kai had the number he simply walked away from the computer.

Tyson slid in on his socks just as Kai found a quiet corner of the kitchen to make his call.

"I'm going with you, the end."

He just looked at him, mostly out of amusement. The short stack didn't have to give him his battle glare. Kai figured Tyson would be riding his tail out for adventure.

"Fine, but for God's sake, try to keep the recklessness to a minimum."

Max's mother's friend turned out to be a Physics and Marine Movement professor at the local community college. He had plans to leave in the wee hours of the morning on a freighter shipping across the pacific to take samples of ocean water and read the currents. Since freighters were no passenger carrier, the professor did quite a bit of sputtering about lack of bunks and rooms, but when Kai insisted he was fine sleeping on whatever space of floor he could throw a sleeping bag, that he'd stay out of the way, and that he had a passport, the professor uneasily agreed to talking to the captain about bringing on some helpers for his research. He did insist on calling Max's mother first for verification of Kai's identity.

Kai only grew uneasy when Kenny insisted on coming along with them. Ayah Kai expected, even planned, on taking along, but Kenny…

But it was Tyson who gave the refusal.

"Look, man, space is tight, you get awful seasickness anyways, and if they start drafting like crazy over here in Japan your asthma will keep you out of that. Besides, we need someone to keep a look out for Hillary and Gramps for us."

Kenny was more surprised than angry. "That actually sounded mature. Are you okay, Tyson?"

"I think you're confusing my playful, fun loving personality with immaturity, Chief. I'm plenty mature. I'm a full grown man!"

Kai laughed. That irked the Dragon, as he knew it would, and he walked away to the sound of Tyson's roars for battle.

"I have to go home and pack, moron. Make sure you grab some sleeping bags."

He gave Aya a nod on his way out. She had a hand twisted up in her own feathers.

Back home, he found a small box waiting for him on his kitchen counter and he opened it like one would a bomb. Inside, however, he found a silver beyblade with a thin attack ring like a long-toothed saw blade. He cursed as he stuffed it into his cargo jean's pocket. It wasn't made of the same dark, glassy substance of the assassin's blades, but that's why Kai liked Tala's blades more and had always settled with an attack ring of his making; they were a happy medium between the durability of a tournament blade and the deathly speed and edge of an assassin's blade. This way it could slice flesh while being able to shatter any assassin's blade he met, while holding its own against the everyday beyblade for as long as it took Kai to call it back and switch out rings.

This, however, was the first time he had a blade entirely of Tala's making. The wolf had gone above and beyond, and Kai knew for a fact that the payment he had sent Tala didn't cover even half of it. It even came with an extra defense ring made of a heavier, high-durability alloy rather than the light reinforced aluminum alloy favored for speed.

 _Friend._

"Idiot. If you were nearby you could have just told me all that shit in person."

He thought he might understand why his own lone wolf attitude pissed off his teammates so often. Tala was driving him up the wall. But, then again, there was no guarantee that Tala would be any safer with Kai then he would be on his own. Still, it would have eased Kai's conscience a good deal more.

For the first time in a month, he once more snapped on his beyblade utility belt. He hadn't realized how naked he had felt without it, but he had been reluctant to see how bad his launch had become since his muscles had been eaten away. He had hoped to build up his strength before taking up his blade once more.

Since Tyson's Grandfather hadn't bothered to get Tyson another cell phone after he lost the first one when he was 15, he decided to head over and supervise Tyson's and Ayah's packing and departure himself. A part of him wished Hillary was coming along to hen pick Tyson for him.

Grandpa Granger met him at the gate with an uncharacteristically grim expression. Kai gave a polite bow of his head.

"Mr. Granger."

The elder Granger crossed his arms. "Hey. Thought you'd be by soon enough. Up for a talk?"

Kai inwardly frowned at the senior's unusual lack of slang, but nodded and adjusted his knapsack on his shoulder so it wouldn't be hanging over a wing bone.

"Now, I won't go pretending you lot aren't almost adults, nor will I try to stop you because I understand there's some pretty powerful things at work that I can't control…but it doesn't make me any happier about this. And so soon after Ayah's come to us…" Grandpa Granger closed his eyes for a few seconds, then open them to give Kai with the same stormy, steely glance that Tyson had so often given him in the heat of battle when nothing would move him. At least Kai knew who he got it from.

"I know you've survived a lot more than you let off, kid, and I know that's made you older than you care. So I'm telling you, man to man, take care of them. Bring them back to me in one piece, you hear?" Grandpa Granger hesitated. "Please."

It was as though a prickling, invisible weight came down upon him, stretching out like clay across his shoulders, arms, torso, legs—almost as though he himself had been the one to grow heavier. At the same time, a familiar steely reserve rose up in response to the weight. It wasn't unfamiliar to Kai, after all. He was the captain, and a part of him always would.

So he gave another nod. "Yes sir."

Grandpa Granger gave a whiskery smile and gave Kai's unladen shoulder a squeeze. "All that 'you're grown up' talk aside, Kai, you're one darn good kid. Better than anyone has the right to expect of you."

Unexpectantly, those words moved something within him; something he had almost forgotten about, but which burned alongside his pride and ambition every waking moment. To his alarm, his throat abruptly tightened and his eyes started to burn with tears he hadn't shed since he was small. He ducked his head to hide the embarrassing, uncontrolled wave of emotion and simply gave another bow.

In a very Tyson-ish manner, Grandpa Granger barked with laughter and gave Kai a thumping pat on the shoulders.

"Head on in, you've let me embarrass you enough."

Kai did so with great relief.

To walk straight into Hillary.

She staggered back and Kai reflexively caught her arm to stop her from falling. He tugged her back to her feet, which somehow brought her uncomfortably close to the point her face filled up his entre view. Before he could get away—wait, should he apologize? No, it had just been a pointless accident—her face was suddenly much closer, closer than he thought it could get, closer than ANYONE'S face should ever get to his.

When her lips touched his, every ounce of his almost forgotten revulsion to human flesh returned to him with the sensation of millions of ants rocketing up his skin.

He shoved her back, hard. Poor Hillary didn't just fall down, she flew, sliding down the hall on her butt a few feet.

The guilt wrenched him before her big, hurt brown eyes looked up at him, brightening with tears.

"I-I-I was surprised," he choked out. Reasons first, apologies always last. Things worked out better that way—how the hell was this suppose to work? What the hell just happened? "I don't—touching, I don't do touching."

Her chin jerked down as she moved to hide the obvious tears. "No, I'm sorry, I should have remembered. I knew that. Idiot I…but I guess it's worth it to see you all flustered—wait, scratch that, did you have to push so hard? Jerk." But her words didn't have the force she meant them to have. Her voice was already burbling up with the water dripping down onto her shirt.

He should do something. He should help her up, he should—why the hell should he do that? She was the one who had invaded his space and just kissed him, you don't just assault someone like that! But even as he thought that he remembered Ayah's kiss to his newly healed lips and how it had overturned every nerve in his body with the softness. He hadn't thought of disgusting, squishy flesh then. Just the softness and the warmth. Hadn't Ayah surprised him?

No. This was different, he told himself. Hillary had come out of nowhere.

Still, while saying such blunt things to anyone else wouldn't have phased him, even if they were bawling at his feet, Hillary was different. He had always respected Hillary.

So he stepped forward and reached out. But she didn't even see his hand and pushed herself to her feet.

"I guess that answers my question," she mumbled, and stepped passed him. Without another word she slid open the door and stepped out. He stared at the closed door for a minute before slipping off his shoes and making his way up the stairs where he could here Tyson and Ayah shuffling about. His heart was doing a weird squiggly sort of beating he didn't quite understand, but then, he was never one to closely examine his feelings unless they pertained to a potential threat.


	8. When You Need to Grind Steel

**I think Tyson and Kai have the perfect bromance.**

6

Since it wasn't an upcoming match that had the world of beyblading as they knew it riding on the outcome, Tyson passed out like a dead thing around ten o' clock, despite his proclamations of staying up till two when they had to leave for the docks. Tyson had pulled out some old hiking back packs his father had left behind from old expeditions and packed them each with sleeping bags, nevermind the fact that Kai and Ayah wouldn't be able to wear them due to their tightly packed wings. Well, at least not comfortably.

Ayah, touched by her adoptive brother's thoughtfulness, was still messing with the straps and repacking the thing in attempts to make it work when said brother passed out in a storm of snoring. She threw a blanket on him then went back to tugging on the crunchy old straps with a wrinkled nose.

Kai sighed. "Give it up. We'll just have the mule bring whatever gear he thinks we need."

She looked at him in confusion until she realized the 'mule' in question was Tyson, then she frowned.

"It's the end of summer, fall is here. The sleeping bags would help us keep warm."

"We're going on a ship. The ocean keeps the temperature mild, and if it gets too cold we'll be in doors. Besides, it's getting wet we'll have to worry about."

"What about the food? Or all this…" she pulled out a box of matches and shook it, eyebrows knitting. "What is this?"

He couldn't help the smile. "You don't know what matches are? Did you're Daddy breathe fire or something?" After all, he could do it.

"These make fire? No, my father was an avatar of sound, like me." She dropped the matches back into the pack and brought out a flashlight, which she flicked one experimentally, and smiled when it lit up. "My mother, though, was light. Beautiful light. All her feathers were like…mirrors or crystals, and when she flew dozens of rainbows would be born with each flap of her wings, and they'd dance…" After a moment of thought she turned off the light. "I guess we wouldn't need all this if you can breathe fire, right?"

"You don't want me to do that for light. I nearly burned down the house just trying to light the oven. Max will be picking us up at the port anyways. I don't know where Tyson gets the idea we'll be roughing it."

But she kept playing with the backpack, a little dream-like smile on her face. He watched her until she gave up and yawned with a wide stretch of her arms and wings. Even having his own didn't stop him from feeling the bit of awe at the surrealness of her feather's movements.

For some reason, it made him think of Hillary. Apparently she had dropped by to help Ayah with more durable, travel worthy clothes, as well as to ask Tyson what the hell he was thinking leaving on such short notice. Kai happened to walk into her just as she was leaving for Kenny's to rant at him as well.

What he really wish he could do was sleep, but he didn't trust his phone's alarm with something as important as his possible survival.

"Kai?"

He had his head tipped back and his eyes closed, so he just made his usual "Hn," to show he heard her.

"What…what happened with Hillary today? At the front door. I didn't mean to hear, but even Tyson…I mean, she sounded really upset and if there's anything I can do-"

"It's nothing" he said. Because, really, it wasn't. At least nothing he wanted to discuss, because what was there to say?

"She sounded really upset, though."

"Then how about you ask her? She knows more about it than me."

"Do you think she'd be awake?"

"I don't know people's sleeping schedules," he said, because, well, he didn't. And teenagers didn't really hold to society's standards of wellness, if anyone held to those.

He only realized that probably came off rude and grouchy—which concerned him because that actually concerned him when it never had before—when Ayah said, "I didn't know you hated being touched so much. Is it just…different with Hilary? Do you like her?"

Now he wasn't concerned about whether he sounded rude. This wasn't a conversation he was going to have with her of all people. He opened his eyes to give her a hard look. "Ayah."

Not even Tyson could have ignored the warning in his voice, let alone the sound sensitive Ayah.

"I'm sorry!" she squeaked. "I just—she was just—I don't…I should be quiet now."

'Yes,' he almost said, but at the same time he cringed. He didn't want to make her uncomfortable. Everyone else in the world could burn in hell for all he cared, but she…screw it, what was wrong with him?

"You should catch some sleep too," he said lowly.

"Yeah. I don't think I can do anything more with this anyways." She dropped the bag by Tyson's and got to her feet, tail feathers tight and stiff along with her wings. "You can probably take Tyson's bed."

"I'm not sleeping."

"We have alarms set up for two."

He let out a sigh. "I'm fine."

Thankfully, she didn't push it, and moved to head out of the dojo. At the door, she paused.

"Why did you push her so hard?" she asked.

He didn't need to ask how she had gleaned that much from only hearing it. He also had expected her ultra hearing to invade his privacy to this depth sooner or later. Still, what troubled him more was the knee-jerk instinct to snarl at her with a bark to stay out of business. This was why he couldn't be close to her. Because he responded so easily to his discomfort with abuse when she hadn't done anything wrong. Hillary was her friend, after all.

He wasn't a stranger to self-control either, though, and after a deep breath through his nostrils, he said evenly, "She bumped into me then caught me off guard by kissing me. Like I said, I don't deal with touching well. Maybe it has to do with being raised to be a killer, but I don't deal well with people getting so close without warning me. And no, I am not in love with her. I don't really do romance."

To his relief, she didn't demand more, nor did she look at him with disgust. Rather, she smiled, throwing him off guard.

"Why didn't you just say that before? Tyson's right, you are dramatic."

An unwanted heat rose to his cheeks. He opened his mouth to say he wasn't dramatic, but all that came out was a little croak.

She turned back and leaned her shoulder against the doorway, a visible release of tension in her feathers. "I'm sorry for all the times I—I got into your personal bubble. It must have made you very uncomfortable."

Oh God, he hadn't been looking for an apology, he could care less. Crap, his face was getting hotter. Why? And for someone supposed to be seeking forgiveness, why did she keep smiling like she was apologizing to a kitten rather than a grown man? Screw it, he was done forcing himself to be nice. "Go to bed."

"Alright, Captain."

It then took him five seconds too long after Ayah left to realize that Tyson had stopped snoring. Kai groaned and put a hand to his face.

"What?" he asked.

Tyson had his back to him, but he still tried to keep up the appearance of unconsciousness.

"I know you're awake."

"What of it?" Tyson mumbled.

"I've seen you pretend to sleep before, you aren't even trying, which means you have something to say you think deserves an impression of coolness, which snoring would ruin."

"Shit, Kai, can you take me seriously once in a while?"

"I'm taking you seriously now, aren't I? I'm just not in the mood for you theatrics, so cough it out and go back to sleep."

"Rawr, you're on one." But he rolled over, twisted into a seating position, and cracked his neck. "I'm not the one to give you a guilt trip about how you treated Hillary, because she of all girls should have known not to jump you like that. But what happened to make you so mushy and nice to Ayah? I was sure you were going to do the whole bark and gnashing of teeth."

Kai scowled at him. "Who's not taking who seriously now?"

Tyson gave a drowsy smirk, then yawned. As he gathered the futon comforter around him, he said, "Look, buddy, if anyone deserves Ayah it's you, but you've got to do something about how tense you get whenever someone asks you a question. She's been through enough without you jumping on her when all she wants to be is your friend. You know, like you do with _everyone_ who tries to be your friend?"

Kai stood up, hotter than ever. "I don't need to hear this from you."

"Oh? Because you think I'm dumb?"

"Because…" Because he already knew that, and he also wasn't going to talk about any of this with Ayah under the same roof with her damn super hearing. "Nothing is happening. I don't like what you're implying with 'deserving Ayah.' I don't do that lovey-dovey crap, or did you not hear?"

"Everyone does the lovey-dovey crap, smart-ass. It's one of our basic human needs."

"Well, last time I checked I wasn't human anymore."

Tyson actually had the gall to laugh at that, which irked Kai to no end. He wasn't going to put up with this anymore.

"Wait—ha ha ha—Kai! Magic flying Kai, come on, I'm just trying to talk to you!"

"No, you're trying to preach to me. Get off my leg!"

"Nuuuuu! Don't leave me like this, Captain! I'll be so forlorn!"

"You don't even know what forlorn means—"

"—Ow! Seriously?"

"I told you to get off."

"There's no way I'm going to let you just walk away after doing that, you asshole!"

Kai almost managed to escape from the dojo door with some semblance of dignity, having shaken Tyson off, but the dragon thought it apt revenge for being kicked in the chest by body tackling Kai around the middle, sending them both crashing into the hall wall.

A short, furious wrestling match ensued where Kai's still weakened muscles and lighter weight gave Tyson just enough edge to counter Kai's superior training in combat.

Tyson managed to wedge his red face out from under Kai's arm, dark eyes alight with their all too familiar challenge. "What was that about not liking touching, robot!"

"This isn't touching," Kai snarled, ducking Tyson's fist and taking out Tyson's attempts to stand with a swipe of his leg. "This is mauling."

"Whatever happened to letting your blade do the talking? Or have you really—ompf!"

Kai smirked at his well aimed elbow to the gut. "You talk too much."

"Bastard-!"

"OY!"

Tyson and Kai froze, fists raised, with Tyson looking ready to launch up from his lower position on the floor like a rocket to Kai's face.

Grandpa Granger had emerged from his bedroom dressed in only a nightshirt and boxers, his mustache askew and fire in his eyes.

"Homies trying to sleep, ya'all! Take it outside if you got to get down, but don't go scabbling in home's crib!"

Kai flushed and gave the old man his back, humiliated that he was caught having a petty fight with Tyson after he had just sworn to the old man to watch out for him. Tyson, however, moaned.

"We're not fighting, grandpa. We're discussing things like men."

"You're discuss'n like drunks, that's what you are! Now GIT!"

Which was how Kai found himself in the backyard with Tyson at nearly midnight with his new silver blade loaded in with a tournament grade attack ring and Tyson facing him at the other end of his bey stadium.

"Sumo style," said Tyson, every line of his figure in serious duel mode.

"When our fighting spirits rise," replied Kai with a nod, though he had forgotten his aggravation with Tyson the moment Grandpa Granger had come downstairs.

It had been so long since he had launched his blade. So long since he'd felt Dranzer's fire.

Tyson exploded in movement, and Kai responded. Rather than the dark blue, his silver blade flashed bright in the moonlight as it crashed into the white-gray of Dragoon. The blade's flew back from the collision and back into the bey stadium.

"Since this is the only way you feel comfortable talking," said Tyson as Dragoon whizzed around Kai's blade, vanishing every so often due to the speed of its rotation. "Let's talk."

"There's nothing to talk about," said Kai, dodging an attack. Despite the obvious lack of strength in his own blade's rotation, along with the obvious missing spirit which made Dragoon hum and spark with power, Kai's eyes were just as sharp as ever. He could see Tyson coming. He knew him.

"You're probably right. We just haven't battled in ages." Tyson grinned. "What, you think because you pop out wings I'm going to let you sneak out of getting your butt whooped in Beyblade? You wish."

"You sure you're not dreaming, Tyson? Like hell I'd just walk away."

To Kai's satisfaction, he held his own against Tyson for much longer than he had expected for losing half his muscle mass and not touching a blade for a month. Perhaps he had managed to build back enough strength through his training after all.

When his blade toppled to a stop, Tyson was the one who threw it back at him.

"Again," he said.

And Kai just smiled so broadly it made the back of his head hurt. This was why Tyson was his rival. This was why he was his friend. He hadn't realized just how wound up and anxious he had been until now. He had needed this. It was almost as though Tyson had known all along.

"A count down this time," he said.

"Alright," said Tyson, mirroring Kai's grin. "Three, two, one…"


	9. Early Morning Take Off

**I'm sorry for how short this chapter is. The version of this story that I had completed got lost and my life's gotten really...rocky. I'll try to get you guys an early update to make up for it. ^.^**

7

The freight was a monolith of a ship that sat long and flat in the water, with a blocky orange control tower at the far end. Engines whined and groaned as cranes were being lowered into the belly of the beast, surrounded by the great bulk of shipping containers that crowded the ships enormous deck. Tyson kept making obnoxious whooping noises past security and up to the ramp, where the older lady in an orange caution vest led them to a man in his thirties who had a clean shaven face and skin browned by the sun. He eyed Kai and the sleepy Ayah's bulky trench coats.

"Mr. Hiwatari?" When Kai did a jerk of his chin, he averted his eyes from their attire and stuck out his hand. "Dr. Clemens. Iyori Clemens. Dad's from the States, hence the last name. Trust me, I'm older than I look. Me and Dr. Tate go way back."

Tyson gawked. "You're a professor? Dude, you look as old as my brother! Just how old are you?"

"Thirty-eight."

"You're almost forty?! Pfft, give me whatever youth-juice you're rubbing all over your face."

"Tyson," groaned Kai, who had to take hold of Ayah's sleeve to stop her from wandering off in a dream-like daze. Who knew she did this badly at waking up?

At least Dr. Clemens noticed Ayah's trouble. "Oh! Of course. We better get you to the bunks. It is blasted three in the morning. I hope you don't mind being a bit cramped. I had to store you all in the room they threw in my equipment. This isn't any cruise ship, after all."

The walk past the looming block of shipping crates to the great orange building at the far end of the ship seemed to take days. By the time they reached a heavy metal door that opened with a metal wheel, like you saw on submarine's, a fog horn bellowed for departure. Great clinking chains snapped and crackled against metal in their retraction. The doctor lead them straight down a white, metal and linolium hallway with bleaching lights, up a flight of stairs, and to the last doorway to the right at the end of the second hallway. He flipped the latch like door handle and pushed it open.

The man hadn't been joking when he said it would be cramped. Three metal bunks, like shallow, man-sized flower boxes, had been folded down from the walls, two on the right wall, one on the left. The space left between the beds to the rest of the room and the doorway was just large enough for one person to walk through. The rest of the space had been taken up by heavy grade plastic crates varying in blue and gray.

"There's a bathroom there," he said, pointing across a particularly low stack of crates at the foot of the single bed on the left to a narrow door that looked like it could have been taken off a cheap camper trailer. "If you can figure out a place to put those two crates it would clear the walkway more, but I couldn't move them by myself. You called rather late minute. This is the best I could do."

"It's alright, I can climb!" chirped Tyson.

Ayah had already floated past Kai to the lone bunk on the left, where she collapsed on the narrow foam mattress with a poof of musty cotton blankets.

Dr. Clemen's chuckled. "Poor girl. How 'bout we wait till morning for all the introductions and questions? Best you get some shut eye while you can. I intend to work you, after all."

Tyson wriggled past Kay and clambered onto the top bunk like a monkey, not even noticing the small ladder set into the wall besides the beds.

"Are there any rules we should know about?" Kai asked.

"Well, for now just stay in this room until I come to get you in the morning. Best we not get into anyone's way."

With that, the brown, young Dr. Clemens wished them a good night and closed the door. Kai checked it for a lock, found it, and flicked it on before making his way over to Ayah and proceeded to tug off her trench coat. She gave an amusing noise between a whine and a question before sitting up to help. Her white wings tumbled over his arms before she flopped back down with a sigh.

"Better," she muttered, a small smile on her lips. A few curls of white hair had escaped her bun to curl about her cheeks. Kai hid his own smile and set to work getting his own coat off.

"When I transform, I'm getting my trench coat in blue," said Tyson from the top bunk.

Kai ignored him. He dropped the pile of black canvas and leather onto the floor, kicked off his boots, and curled into the bottom bunk. The bed was certainly no Temperpedic mattress, but he'd had worst.


	10. The Comfort of Routine

**Technically this is just the end of chapter 7 that somehow got deleted, but since I've been so late updating it, I'll put up another chapter after this. ^.^**

 **As to how I'm doing, I'm super super stressed trying to find a place to live that's affordable (have any of you seen freaking rent lately?), and my son is being difficult and my face is breaking out like a nightmare...but I'm still writing, so life hasn't ended quite yet. XD**

8

The next thing he knew he was waking up to a warmly lit room of crates wondering how he got there.

Course, it didn't last long, and he unfolded himself, creaking and popping, out of the top bunk. Once he worked himself to and from the tiny bathroom, suffocated each way by crates and totes, he hurriedly stuffed his wings into his trench coat and shuffled outside, gnawing on a protein bar he had packed along the way. Late morning sunshine shone through the portholes.

Need to exercise, he thought belatedly. His wings felt more crunched than usual in the tiny space, and all the water around him wasn't exactly comforting.

As he neared the stairwell to the deck, a sailor came down, dressed in dark overalls and with a face-crowding beard. Kai met his eye and raised a hand, and the man stopped.

"Do you have a big space somewhere I could exercise? Preferably private." If a sailor should happen to glance at his wings, perhaps he could shrug it off as cabin fever, but he'd be stupid to risk it.

The sailor nodded and gave Kai directions to storage holds near the back and bottom of the ship. He'd just checked it himself, and the next inspection of it wouldn't be for another three hours.

"And it isn't like you could steal anything," said the man with a snort. "Shipping containers all locked and loaded, so I doubt the captain would mind. I'll let him know you're down there anyways." His eyes jumped down for a moment, then back up. "Are the feathers for something?"

Kai glanced down to find he had totally forgotten to stuff away his obnoxiously long tail feathers. Heart picking up a beat, he shrugged, made an off comment about some dance he intended to practice with as one of his exercises, and headed back where he came until he reached another staircase, this time going down. Fifteen minutes and more staircases than he cared to think about later, he found himself before one of the small, upper access doors of C6 holding. Despite being told that the captain wouldn't mind, Kai reflexively checked for any others before opening the door and stepping out onto a metal, railed walkway or catwalk of sorts painted a brilliant, caution yellow. Below, a story down, was the heavy metal floor of a vast, two story room filled, floor to ceiling, with shipping containers of various colors and age. A large loop of hose hung on the wall next to the door he had walked through, along with a large fire extinguisher. For some reason, this amused him, and instead of taking the stairs down, he tugged off his trench coat then and there and climbed onto the railing. The clearest space in the room was directly below him anyways, where a large walkway had been left clear of shipping containers.

He jumped. Stale, metallic air caught him, and he found himself banking hard to avoid crashing into the wall of trailer sized containers. Before his feet could touch the floor, he pulled up, and started to flap.

Balled up nerves he hadn't know he had began to uncoil as the familiar feel of burning muscles and routine settled in. Soon enough he had a comfortable blanket of heat about him, and he lost himself in the effort to keep moving.

He didn't know how long he worked. All he knew was that he didn't want it to end. Outside of the push and pull of his arms, of the laps back and forth, of the pain that followed from his hollow joints, to the fiery flaps of his wings, was a world that had changed drastically from what he had been raised for. But exercising—training—he knew that, and strength never went amiss.

When the door up on the landing closed with a loud, metal clack, Kai whirled around, a thrill of terror spiking up his gut. Had three hours already gone by? How would he explain this? What if it—

Ayah looked down at him, the off-white of the trench coat looking like a weak, chocolate milk compared to the whiteness of her hair. She flashed him a tentative smile.

"Could I join you?"

He pulled in his wings, wiping an arm across his forehead mostly out of habit rather than need, though the amount of heat he felt on his skin could have been a fire unto itself.

"I'm a little hot right now," he said, blushing at the double meaning and deciding not to make a fool of himself by address it. "So as long as you keep your distance..."

"Kay!" She all but shimmied out of her trench coat, and despite being fully clothed underneath, it gave him ideas he would much rather not have. She too climbed up onto the railing and spread out her pearly white feathers. As she jumped with a little yip, he braced himself to catch her. He mightn't have bothered, though, as she landed, not only without having to flounder from crashing into shipping containers, but as light and lovely as a flower on the water next to him. A second later, she stumbled back.

"You really are hot," she said, arms up to protect her face. "Wow!"

"Hn." Any response he could think of sounded like a bad attempt at flirting, so he just put more space between them and picked up where he left off. He felt her eyes on him for a minute or so before she tried to picked up the push/flap ups he had invented, where he did push ups while holding his wings out, to which he used to flap himself up every other push.

When she inevitable crashed face first on the floor, he paused in concern.

"Ow…"

"Maybe you should just do normal beats," he suggested, taking that chance to tug out his cheap cell phone to check the time. "We're going to want to wrap up soon anyways." He didn't know how long ago exactly the guy had inspected the place, so good to keep plenty of wiggle room between now and the next inspection.

As she pushed herself up, he checked for signs of bleeding. On finding none, he averted his eyes and pulled up. He glanced down at his arms, which radiated heat waves. No telling what this could do to his trench coat if he put it on now. There had been a hose up by the door, though.

Figuring it a good way to end a good exercise session, he pushed himself off and flapped to the landing, barely catching himself on the railing in time to stop himself from bashing into it.

"Whew! Way to go!"

He didn't respond to her cheering, even if it did make his stomach do stupid little flips. Like he needed encouragement.

Even as he reached for the hose, he noticed something missing. The trench coats. Frowning, he looked across the sea of riveted metal to where another landing was, exactly like this one, but with his and Ayah's trench coats hanging off it. How had I missed that? Figuring this hose would work as well as the next, he turned it on and braced himself before sticking his head under with a hiss that was loss in the hiss of water hitting his heated skin. Whoa.

He had just gotten the stream of water past his shoulders and pits when Ayah suddenly appeared beside him, launching herself at his arm.

"Hide!"

He didn't even have the time to shut off the water, which poured/tumbled the two stories through the grates to smack against the floor, before she tugged him through the door. Spluttering, alarmed that he might burn her, he tugged his arm free.

"An alarm is going off on the other end of the ship, and people are running towards here," she said in response to his look. "I can't tell which floor, though, freaking everything echoes on this freaking metal shi—" she froze, head tilted to one side. Then she started pushing him towards the stairs on the short end of the hall. "Someone's coming down the hall! Up! Up!"

Baffled, he allowed her to tug him up the stairs to, not another floor, but a short landing with doors on opposite sides. She gave each a glance before throwing open the door to the left and darting inside.

"In here! Quick!"

"They won't be looking up the stair—"

Her white hand grabbed hold of his wrist and yanked him in.

Then closed the door behind them.


	11. Closet Time

**Got one of those annoying ingrown zits on my chin-the kind that won't pop, but swell up big and red and ugly and you can't get rid of. Thinking of lancing it with a sewing needle. Afraid most of it might just be swelling though, and there's an annoyed mama-like voice in my head slapping at my thoughts saying "Just leave the darn thing alone! Stop picking at it!"**

 ***sigh* Those people who told you that your zits go away when you grow up? They lied. Twenty-five and still busting out pustules like a teenager.**

 **And with that pleasant thought...**

9

The thin line of light beneath the door was just enough to make out a pale outline of her face. Her white hair had escaped her bun in leaps, leaving only half tucked away with the rest trailing streams of curling white-silver over her shoulders and back. One settled against his bare arm, cool and smooth as glass.

Shadows flickered across the light. Heavy boots thumped down the hall below, impossibly close, and a walkie-talkie crackled.

"... _we got three down, you better..."_

Then it had gone too far to hear. Without his own heavy breathing and the sound of the water hitting the floor below, Kai could hear the fog horn blaring in the distance. He was mildly surprised he had missed it at all.

"What's happening?" He felt her whisper as a warm brush across his neck.

"You would know more than me," he breathed back. "What do you hear?"

She went silent. He could feel just the barest trace of her breasts and knees as she struggled to keep the distance between them. Beneath the pungent air of the inflatable, rubber life boats, her musk twined into his senses. He closed his eyes and breathed through his mouth.

"There's a lot of movement," she whispered. "They're all heading to somewhere on the deck. It's...it's hard to hear anything else above that blasted devil of an engine and the echoing. Ugh, I hate metal. You hear _everything._ "

"Maybe a container went overboard." The ribbon of hair slid snake like across the curve of his neck as she shifted. He shivered. "Let me know when no one's nearby." Then they could run to their coats and tuck in, no one the wiser. Damn it, his back was starting to ache. His wings protested against being held in so tightly. He dared to relax them and felt himself pushed forward a precious inch, which spread her breasts against him and brought her stomach into his. Her legs shifted to find comfortable room about his.

Though he wasn't quite panting anymore, he could still hear himself breathing. Loudly. Heat crawled up to his face as he wondered what she could be thinking and he snapped his mouth closed, but that just brought her scent back into his lungs. It filled him like warm smoke till it mingled with the fire in his belly, releasing it into his blood. A heady wave of the heat pooled in his stomach, weighing him down.

He held back a groan. "Are we clear."

"Not yet," she whispered. The faint light glittered off the shine of her eyes. It took him a second to register she wasn't looking at the light, as he had been, but at him. He became aware of the feel of her breath again, ghosting past his neck and curling up his chin.

This couldn't be normal. It just couldn't.

When he felt her fingertips land upon his arm like butterfly wings, he flinched.

"Don't!" He almost squeaked.

They drew back, but somehow she had drawn closer. "What's wrong?" The rise in pitch conveyed fear. He hadn't meant to scare her. Hell, he hadn't meant to be scared himself.

He forced a deep breath through his nose, which wasn't as clearing as he had hoped it to be. "It's nothing, I..."

Her breath. When had it risen to his lips? In a flush of heat he remembered her taste.

Had the kiss in the hospital really been to heal him? He should ask her. He should get it out in the open, be blunt like Tyson, be honest like she-

Ever soft lips formed against his, shattering his thoughts. He comprehended that one of her knees had slid between his thighs to bring her flush against him, and softness-feathery, downy softness-blanketed to either side of him. Her long fingers landed, butterfly-light once more, upon his chest. The edge of her nose touched his.

The steel resolve of his soul melted. Weak-kneed, he went splay-winged against the wall of rubber and sunk to the ground. She followed him, her velvet lips feathering after his own till he found her tucked between his legs against his chest. He couldn't remember when he twined his arms around her to pull her near. All he knew was a euphoria like he'd never known. It blinded him like fireworks, eased him down like the strongest drug, made him cry out to dig deeper into her like the first taste of food after days without.

The part of him still functioning wondered if this was what the guys had meant when they explained their reasons for risking punishment just for a night in a woman's bed. Was this the beginning of that disgusting, stupefying, weakening thing called sex? That animalistic urge he had always discounted as being the most base and defiling need of his manhood?

But as he took her in with wonder, following her lips with his own as she moved him into gentle kiss after gentle kiss, he couldn't see it. There was nothing disgusting about this. 'Rutting' was an insult. This was just touch, kissing, warmth, safety and peace as he had never known it. Her presence and feel blocked out the dangerous world as soundly as the most intense beybattle. He found himself yearning to convey this...this sheer, naked emotion rising up so powerfully in him it brought tears to his eyes. So, as gently as he could, he caressed her face, her neck, and her arms, all the way down to those slender little fingers laid out against his chest. Caresses as chaste as his tenderness.

Suddenly, his mouth went cold as she drew back with a quiet gasp.

"Kai...Kai, you love me?"

Her voice made him ache with its vulnerable uncertainty.

His floundering fingers went to her face without thinking, almost in pain with the need to banish her anxiety.

"Yes," he gasped.

"Really?" His heart leapt with her elation. "You-you love me too? You'll be with me? My Kai? My Kai forever?"

Something chill and unwelcoming dripped down his spine. The cloud nine his awareness had flown too vanished, and he could sense the impact of earth coming.

 _What the hell was he doing?_

She sensed his hesitation as soon as it came on. "Kai, don't-"

"Calm down," he said lowly, even as he tried to ease her off of him in the small space.

She made a little tittering noise to begin a protest that he couldn't help but find cute, but complied to his wishes and pulled back. Their legs became hopelessly tangled in each other and spare rope they must have knocked off hooks on their way down, but he could breath now, at least.

He took a steadying breath. "Look, you can't..." He closed his eyes to try and focus, even though what little sight he had wasn't much. "You're making a mistake with me. I...I can't make you happy."

"Don't," she said in a small voice he didn't like. "Let me decide that for myself."

"No, listen to me. You don't know me. Tyson's known me for years and he doesn't even really know me-know how awful I can be and I've betrayed him so many times-"

"-I know, he told me-"

" _Listen to me_!" It wasn't so much a shout as it was a plea, and he cringed at the sound. It brought back too many bad memories. He hated this. "How many men of your own kind have you met? You can't just-I don't know anything about being gentle or loving. I was raised to be a killer-you know what kind of people Cain had been recruiting, don't you? I'm one of those people. I can't let you do this to yourself."

"Kai-"

But he overrode her, terrified that if he let her speak she would talk him out of it. "Please, Ayah, I've hurt so many people, I've hurt my best friends- _my only friends_ multiple times. I couldn't live with myself it I hurt you too, and I will. Please, can't you-Ray, have you tried Ray?"

She snorted. "Try? I'm not at a buffet-"

"Ray loves you, he's nearly torn me apart for just speaking badly about you, he would make a better...whatever you're looking for. He's the kindest person I know."

Her legs were withdrawing from his as she drew them up to her chest. "So you don't want me?"

"That's not what I-"

"That's the only thing you could be saying," she said, her tone more brittle and harsh than he had ever heard it. "You think I'm too stupid to make a choice for myself in who I want to be with? You think I kissed you because you're the only one of my kind besides Cain? I've loved you since that moment you returned from getting Tyson's and Max's souls. I saw you, and do you know what I saw?"

"Ayah, you don't know-"

"I saw a imperfect, injured boy with a guilt complex who I had known for a fact was experiencing more fear in his body that anyone around me had felt in a weeks worth all at the same time."

"So you pitied me? Some basis for lov-"

" _But you went anyway!_ You were terrified, and yet you acted as though nothing scared you. You risked your life, you snarled and growled in danger's face, all for your friends." She must have heard how loud she was getting, for she quieted to a soft whisper. " I've never, ever seen anyone so brave. You're whole body is on fire, and yet you keep coming."

Something in her voice made him drop his chin and open his eyes. The pale light from within the door still brought out the highlights on her hair enough for him to see that she had hidden her face in her arms.

"Unlike me," she whispered.

He made a half grunt, half snort of disbelief past the emotion in his throat. "Brave? Hardly. Tyson, Max, Ray, hell, even Chief. They're brave."

She shook her head. "Bravery is when you push through despite the fear. None of them have as much to fear as you." She sighed and he felt the last of her feathers pull away from him. "I wish...I wish I was more like you. I wish I was brave-I wish I was passionate and strong and dedicated."

"It appears you see me in a biased light. I'm..." He closed his eyes again. He had to focus. "Look, even if those things are true, it doesn't change the fact that I'm unheathily inexperienced to the ways of...tenderness, so to speak. Even if you see me behave now, just wait when stress or bad times come-"

"What, like now?" she said, all sour and spit. "Tell me one time when everything has been all fine and dandy for you since I've come along? If you're terrible cruelty is how you treated me when you thought I was going to suck out your teammates' souls, that's cute."

Irritation rose up in response to his desperation. He knew if he let her talk she would do this; paint him into a corner. "I'm trying to protect you."

"You're just hurting me!" she cried. "Why won't you let me close, Kai? Can't you let me choose for myself whether you're too horrible?"

Now it was his turn to coil back. It was suppose to be for her good, to keep her safe. Had he just been trying to protect himself the entire time? In trying to spare her feelings, was he just sparing his own guilt and despair? His own fear of rejection?

That crammed him up and locked up his reason. In moments like this, when his mind failed, his emotions took over, and they were rarely kind.

"Whatever," he found himself snarling. He reached up to grab the edge of the deflated rubber boat he had been sitting against. "Destroy yourself against me. It isn't like you have any sense of self-preservation anyways. When your miserable and trapped, remember I warned you."

And growing more and more riled by his own cruel words, a painful roar rising up from his gut, he pawed for the door knob and threw open the door. He more or less fell out, but turned it into the first thunderous step of his march. He didn't care anymore if the freight crew saw him in all his feathery glory, he needed air. He needed away from her suffocating smell and his own self-loathing.

Lucky for him, he came upon his trench coat before he came upon the deck and had himself mostly covered by the time he kicked the door open-

And straight into the barrel of a shot gun.

"Was wondering when you'd quit pounding around and get out here."


	12. Fire and Blade

**Lanced it-it just oozed. No awesome explosion. And now it's taking forever to heal**

 **BUT!**

 **I found an acne something or other that's working! I have no zits on my face-besides the healing lanced whatever-my face is so clear! OMGEEEEEEEEE! I can't remember the last time this happened to me! God really does love me.**

 **Though the lancing reminds me of this time my husband had this big, hard bump in his wrist that was annoying him...**

 **Anyways.**

10

The holder of the shotgun, a dark man of possible Hispanic origins, prodded Kai to turn around, where another armed man stood at the ready to zip-tie Kai's wrists behind him. Once three thick plastic bands had been tightened till he could feel the circulation cutting off from his fingers, a heavy boot to the back sent him to his knees.

"Where is she?"

"Going to have to be more specific," said Kai, cool as winter.

"The only girl on this ship, smart ass."

"I recall two of the crew members being-" The heavy boot pounded his back again, or rather his poor hidden wings, knocking the wind out of him as he was thrown to the dirty metal plating of the deck.

"Young girl. She's white. All white."

He could taste blood in his mouth. _How did they know? Why would these men want..._

Dread realization settled over him like a blanket made of needles. Not that the shotgun barrel in the chest had warned him of anything.

"Check behind him." Growled the voice above him. "Don't bother being quiet. Freak ship's like a giant drum."

The other man, a huge beast of a man with flaming ginger hair, stuffed something into his right ear and more or less squeezed himself into a door that housed normal-sized men easily. Seeing the full size of him for the first time, the fear inside Kai percolated near to panic. What scared him most was that Kai didn't even question whether this was real or not. It had been all too real for him on too many occasions.

Damn it! He should have expected this!

Within seconds the ginger monster returned with Ayah, wings and all, tucked beneath his one arm like a sleeping back. She squirmed and squawked, but something like a thick muzzle had been put over her mouth, muffling her almost completely. Gray metal bands not unlike what the muzzle was made out of bound her shoulder to knees like the limbs of a giant spider.

The man with his heel to Kai's back gave a low whistle. "Lookie there, she's all grown up!" A faint plastic click, like a button, sounded. "We got her. Starboard side."

Unbeknownst to his captor, Kai's belly had begun to burn and his blood warmed with growing fire. But he couldn't just start flaming. He'd only get one shot before they caught on that Ayah wasn't the only inhuman one on this boat. Maybe if he could just twist around to get some fire over his back-that was impossible. Maybe if he could find Tyson...breathe at just the right time...

"So you've found what you want," he pushed out, spraying spittle across the metal deck his cheek was mashed against. His spit turned to steam instantly, and he prayed they didn't notice. "What have you done with the rest of the crew?"

"Tied 'em up. Duh."

Ugh. A realistic bad guy. What happened to the talkers? "Was a kid among them? Not one of the crew. Crazy guy."

In answer Kai got a kick to the side. If it weren't for his wings absorbing the brunt, he swore his ribs would have cracked. Instead he got a seriously bruised wing and the wind knocked half from him.

"Shut up," said the man above Kai's wheezes.

"OY!"

A grind of gears-a whistling whirr-and the steel toe boots besides Kai stumbled back, cursing. The shotgun barked out a blast. The ginger whirled about and let loose his shotgun as well, though it looked like a toy in his large arms.

Kai's eyes were to Dragoon, which mooved, unheeded by the gunshots, to the Hispanic's ankles. A horrible grind, like a table saw, and the man dropped to his knees with a scream. The ginger giant jerked around, startled.

"What?"

Then the blade was at his ankles, but there was a reason Kai never did his dirty work with a tournament grade blade. Slowed by the first pair of boots it had to chew through, it barely worked through the other mans boots before whizzing off, wobbling to and through.

 _That idiot!_

Kai didn't have a choice now. Using his stomach muscles, he wormed to his knees, took aim at the back of the ginger aiming towards something up on the fire escape, and breathed.

Fresh out of his cocoon, weak, and barely aware of his fire, Kai had incinerated a thick log that would have taken hours to burn through for any normal campfire and nearly set Tyson's house on fire. At his prime, fueled by fear and with a month of practice, the gout of flame came out in a spew of scarlet-gold that cracked the air and turned the world white.

The huge man gave a horrible, animal-like shriek. The cases in his shotgun exploded with stifled pops. Within a blink his body was engulfed. The man writhed towards the edge of the boat, flesh melting as he moved and eventually collapsed

Kai flung himself between Ayah and the heat, cursing himself.

 _Oh god, please let me not have burned her, please let Tyson be farther than I think._

And even as he heard his captor scream in terror, a numb horror was dawning on him. Giving someone a quick kill from a distance with his beyblade had been one thing. This was completely another.

Over the shrieking and roar of his fire, someone landed heavily besides him. He felt the ice cold touch of a blade slide between his wrists.

"Damn! Ow ow-frick, it's like you've made him a freaking sun!" said Tyson.

"Get Dragoon!" cried Kai as his wrists fell free.

Kai avoided catching a glimpse of Tyson's face as he turned on the second man, who was staring up at him in dawning horror, a finger pressing in to his ear.

"S-second! There's a second-fire! It's fire!"

Kai sent a round house to his head and the man fell. Before anything else, he unclipped his launcher and loaded Silver Dranzer. He heard the thump of Dragoon returning to Tyson's gloved hand, then the click of Tyson doing the same.

"I can't get this thing off her," Tyson said. "It's made of metal."

"Have you bothered looking for a button or something?"

"I can only look so much in five seconds! We gotta get her out of the open."

They had the ocean to their back and walls of shipping containers three stories high on every other side, with only a little gap where the door to the shipping hold was. There was only a small space between the shipping containers and the wall of the building-like shipping hold for anyone to come at them, and somehow Kai doubted there were any more of them where he and Ayah had been, otherwise she would have heard them and quieted their conversation.

"Just look!" Kai snapped, leveling his launcher at this opening. The first man through there would be dead before he knew what had happened.

"Alright! Just don't breathe fire on me, Lord of the Flames."

"That's not even remotely funny." Kai couldn't comprehend how Tyson could take this all so lightly.

A loud splash behind him told him the giant had made it to the side of the ship, somehow, and had tossed himself over. That, and the vile taste of flame feasting on human flesh had left the air.

"You sure you shouldn't take off your coat in case we need to fly off or something?" asked Tyson, his fingers feeling over the legs of the metal contraption keeping her.

All Kai could make out of Ayah's express was the flicking of her eyelashes as she watched Tyson's search. Her crumpled feathers shivered.

"I defended myself just fine before I could fly."

"Yeah, but these dudes have guns! They nearly took my head off."

"Which is why I'm going to kill you when this is all over. I've had about enough of your stupidity."

"Excuse me, my 'stupidity' just saved your ass." Tyson's forefinger reached the back of her neck and a series of metallic clicks proceeded it. The metal bands went lax like rubber. Tyson caught her from rolling out onto her face. "Yes!"

Ayah's hands flew up to the muzzle. Tyson moved to stop her, but at a bark from Kai, went for his beyblade instead.

And not a moment too soon as the first man appeared, dressed in the same dull gray as his comrades. Kai never gave him the chance to fire his unknown weapon. In a rip so hard he heard his shoulder pop, Silver Dranzer shot from his launcher and across his throat. It bounced against the building in time to ricochet into the second man. It's luck wasn't that miraculous, though, and it sliced across the second's chest rather than his throat, leaving a thin, deep, but not mortal, wound.

Kai twisted around to slingshot his blade into the killing blow, planning to take advantage of the man's shock as he realized the body he had just caught was dead-but the second man didn't even catch his fellow. He didn't so much as flinch as the other crumpled back into him.

Which is where Kai lost his precious fraction of a second.

The silver beyblade flew-a long barrel leveled on Kai-and the whisper of blade against flesh was gone in the roar of the man's gun.

Pain spiked through Kai's shoulder, but his arm didn't give out. His shoulder didn't explode.

Rather, a fat, half empty glass dart plinked onto the ground.

Kai stared at it even as he felt his left arm go numb.

 _They want us alive?_

"Kai!"

Tyson's shout brought him too. The second man had fallen next to his fellow, and their blood had already created a red curtain down the fronts of their necks.

He called back his blade and reloaded it. Ayah still scraped at her muzzle, her eyes wide and brilliant with terror.

"Are you seriously planning on just standing here and killing them all?" Tyson shrieked, his expression deathly pale. At least he still held Dragoon at the ready.

"Where else can we go?" Kai snarled. "Fly? Ayah and I have only flown once, and that was just drifting down the side of a cliff. We can't even carry ourselves let alone-"

Two more men appeared. Kai barely had the time to let Dranzer loose before dropping to the ground to dodge a fresh round of darts.

But he had forgotten the starboard side of the boat where a small space sometimes existed between the shipping containers and the side of the ship.

Five men closed in behind Tyson and Ayah, the first of which threw a ball on Kai just as he dropped to avoid the dart. It sprang open, another flat limbed spider, and clamped closed so completely about him it nearly lifted him off the metal deck. Ayah and Tyson toppled next to him, bound similarly. Just as Kai took a breath in to flame the nearest man to him, a thick muzzle, just like Ayah's, slapped over his mouth. Tyson gave a muffled scream as he was muffled as well.

The last thing he saw was Silver Dranzer flicking off blood as it spun.


	13. Water on the Fire

**Please forgive any typos and mistakes and whatnot. I'm really tired, and my family is being particularly annoying this evening. Yes, I love them to death and they are my world etc etc, but I just want some quiet to either write or sleep, I'm not picky, and...*curls fingers and restrains self***

 **Anyways, I endured to send you this chapter.**

11

He came to under water.

Even though his whole body tingled with numbness, he could still feel the discomforting cold that had sunken into his core. It was dark, and someone had taped a mask over his mouth and nose, the kind he recalled being used in a hospital. Crying out, Kai kicked, paddled, flapped hard with his wings, but something about his ankles held him down, even when he thought he could sense the barest lack of resistance when his wings rose high above him. The surface was close.

He knew this pain. This cold. He screamed, thrashing, drowning despite the clear air pumped about his nose and mouth. Bubbles and water churned about him, turning and twisting his legs about each other till he was forced to stop or risk breaking them. Still, he screamed at how fragile he had become.

At lengths, his strength ran out, leaving him hanging there, suspended in some unknown dark water, panting and freezing. Not even his own eyes could stand the touch of the water anymore and he had to clench them shut.

Deep within him, the heat of his gut all but vanished. He knew he was dying. What else could this be?

Then the bounds on his ankles went slack.

It was just a sign of how far he had gone that he barely moved to speed his float to the surface. When his head broke through, the water surface tension nearly kept him face down.

Hard, claw like hands clamped under his arms and lifted him into the air. Even as his lower legs dangled in the water, warm fingers pried at the mask. He didn't even feel the pain of the tape being torn off. Blackness encroached on his vision.

"Blood pressure dropping," said a neutral female voice. "Heart rate at fifty and going."

Other voices responded, and Kai was dimly aware of the hands lifting him the rest of the way out of the water and laying him out onto something hard. Through the blackness, though, he was drifting. The noises came from a distance. He would feel sad, maybe lonely, in such an abyss, but he had been here before on those dark nights in the abbey when he couldn't sleep for days on end. He knew this. And for some reason, that gave him comfort. He could move through this as he had moved through that. At least he wasn't cold anymore.

The water couldn't reached him here. Boris couldn't reach him here. No one could. At last, he was safe.

"His hatching date must have been guessed wrong," said a reedy sounding woman.

"Blood pressure still dropping," said a thinner, more tense voice.

"Get the blowtorch. Hurry!"

He couldn't quite get a sense of his arms or legs. They had gone tingling and fell asleep, or something like unto it. The darkness didn't seem to be as thick near the end—the end of what? But the blurring light was growing closer—black to navy, navy to blue, blue to light, brilliant light. He couldn't hear the voices. He didn't even care.

In the midst of the light came a long haired figure. At first he thought it was Ayah, and urged himself faster with a silent cry of his soul. But in that same moment, her features cleared and it was red feathers that he saw, not white, and white golden hair swathed about her like a lion's mane. Long tail feathers, though not as long as his, twisted about her legs.

" _There's a reason we chose to inhabit sports tops rather than weapons, like we had in centuries past,_ " she said, and Kai thought he could see a quirk of her thin, pink mouth in the feature bleaching white.

Sudden heat hooked about his naval like a hook about his spine and pulled. Her figure dimmed, darkened, sank away.

" _The future has always been in the hands of our youth._ "

Pain came back into his world, like pins and needles on steroids. Through that pain he became aware of his limbs again, along with a nasty, sour tasting flame. He half expected his frozen face as his upper lip curled back in distaste.

"Heart rate stabilizing."

"Body temperature as well."

"Good," said the reedy woman. "Do we have another one somewhere? Probably not. I'm surprised enough that we had the tank."

He could smell his shirt burning away. As the pins and needles faded, he found himself curling towards the fire, desperate for its touch. The cold was still there, deep, deep within him—too deep to shiver out. He knew, because his body didn't even bother.

"Stop when his blood pressure hits 60. We'll see if it stays there before trying more."

"Ma'am, his torso…"

"Yes. Definitely not the fitness of a champion beyblader. Hatching must have been rather near indeed, or an especially low quality fire. Wouldn't have known with how he was spitting."

"Pity about Donovan, Ma'am."

"Yes. Pity."

Just as he thought some semblance of his ability to get warm again had returned, the fire vanished, and cold clamped around him. He couldn't keep back the strangled whimper of protest. His muscles were cramping, seizing up on him. His inner fire remained a glowing coal.

"That should be good," said the reedy woman after a moment. "Henry, Jessica, samples. I'm inputting the information we have so far."

As fingers tapped and prodded at him, not only did the usual creepy crawlies shoot up his spine, but he wondered for the first time what language these people were speaking. It wasn't Japanese. English. A clean, crisp kind of English that betrayed little accent, and therefore made it difficult for him to place from where. But, then, they could have been from anywhere. English was as close as one got to a universal language, nowadays. Even the doctor's at the Abbey sometimes broke into long stretches of English.

He tried to ignore the pain he was in by listening to the quiet murmurings of what must have been Henry and Jessica as they poked him with needles, swabbed his mouth, and snipped a bit of his hair. He found he hadn't the strength to care, though the memories swarming up to him of the Abbey tables and needles were quickly returning that.

Just as he felt the sharp pain of a feather being popped out of place, a high, warbling siren blared.

"For the love of God!" cried the reedy woman. "Strap him down good and let's go. Henry, make sure that blowtorch is far away from him."

"Yes, ma'am."

He jerked and made a half-hearted attempt to roll before he was pushed back onto the table and secured with straps as wide as his stretched hand. He could hardly wriggle his fingers by the time the probing hands left and their footsteps pattered out of the room. Bracing himself, he wrenched his eyelids apart and stared through the blur at the dark, high industrial ceiling. Simple metal lamps hung not too far from it. Fortunately, the one above him wasn't straight above his face, but somewhere at his navel, though it didn't stop his eyes from watering.

He made to move his head, but they had strapped that down too. Good thinking, in part, though even if he had the strength to move his mouth towards his chest, he hadn't the fire to burn away the straps.

So he lay there, blinking away the blurriness, trying to keep his breathing under control. He had been through this sort of thing before. He'd get through it. They wouldn't be injecting burning stuff into his muscles, they wouldn't be forcing him to eat or drink…yet. No, he had to stop. He couldn't let himself be afraid of the unknown, else it would never end.

Something moved out of the corner of his eye and loud footsteps pounded in.

"Holy—Kai!"

All his attempts to fill his lungs fled him in a rush of relief. Tyson's voice had never been so welcome.

Tyson caught himself on the side of the table. His dark eyes were wide beneath his messy fringe of dark hair. His trademark cap had vanished, probably taken.

"Don't worry, bud, I'll have you out in a jiffy."

Kai tried to oil and work his voice as Tyson set to work.

"Holy crap, did the Hulk do these fasteners? Can you even breathe?"

"Tyson…"

"Yeah."

"Blowtorch…should be around here."

"It's cool, I can do these myself." The strap around Kai's forehead vanished. As his fingers brushed against Kai's arms on the way to the strap on his chest, Tyson swore. "You're like ice!"

"That's why I need th-the blowtorch."

"Seems a little extreme, don't you think?" The strap around his chest vanished. "Wait…why is the top of your pants burnt?"

"Blowtorch," said Kai again, growing impatient. He could only take this cold so long, forget about the overwhelming weakness.

"Okay, okay, once I get these…" the belt around his hips and knees went off at once. Then Tyson hurried off, wondering to himself just what a blowtorch looked at.

Lucky for Kai, Tyson found it before he had to demonstrate his inability to even sit up.

"This is it, right?" He showed the arm sized metal contraption to him.

"Yes, now flame me."

Tyson grinned. "That almost sounds like a dirty joke."

At Kai's angry glare, which wasn't nearly as ferocious as Kai needed it to be (damn face muscles), Tyson said "Okay, okay," pointed the nozzle end at Kai, hesitated for one long second, then turned it on.

Tyson didn't push it down all the way, at first, so the heat was minimal. But once it became apparent to the other blader that Kai's flesh didn't blister away into blackness, he turned it on full blast and Kai had to hold back a moan of relief. Before long, Kai was strong enough to sit up and take the blowtorch from Tyson and heat up himself.

"Ayah?" he asked above the subtle roar of burning gasses. This fire still tasted absolutely nasty.

"She's okay," said Tyson, with a thumbs up. "Since I'm not a weirdo like you and her, they totally underestimated me and just put me into a locked room. Busted out, found Ayah, like, two doors down from me in this freaky foam room, listened for you and then told me where to go, and then she set off the alarm and hid up there somewhere. Metal's really good for conducting sound, apparently, did you know? Oh, speaking of which," Tyson pulled a familiar belt from underneath the examination table. "Found your blade! Didn't take it far, did they?

Kai took the belt and let the blow torch snip off. He could have bathed in the heat for days, but the sour stench was starting to hurt the back of his throat. Besides, he was strong enough. "Where is she?"

"Just down the hall and behind the stairs. Said she'd be keeping an 'ear' out. Dang, I wish we had her all those times we tried breaking in to top secret labs and stuff."

He dropped the blowtorch onto the table and slid to his feet, notching his utility belt as he did so. His feathers still had an uncomfortable dampness to them that he tried to shake off as Tyson led him to the door. He got his first look at the room he had been imprisoned it, which was taken up by the deep, wide tank at one end and with computer machinery on the other. He wondered if this was what a real oceanic research vessel kept on board.

The hallway outside was smaller than the ones on the freight, and so was the short staircase at the other end, which promised a smaller ship. He didn't see Ayah's whiteness until she was practically next to him, having tucked herself in a niche he was surprised she fit into.

"They're all on deck, now," she whispered to the others. "They've figured out already that we've escaped. I managed to find a fire escape map, and it says the life boats are on the other end of the ship."

"Which way is under the deck?" Kai asked.

But Ayah shook her head. "It doesn't go straight through. It's over or not at all."

"Poorly designed boat," said Tyson with a sneer. "Okay, we'll plug our ears and Ayah will shriek 'em down, right?"

Ayah winced. "Um, that won't exactly work."

"Then you go first—"

"No," cut in Kai. "I'll go first—"

"And what, be a meat shield?" said Ayah blandly, looking unimpressed. "I'm going up first. Plug your ears and close the door. Once you hear me, or what you can hear of me, then you can run up and take out as many as you can."

"Cool and practical is the new sexy," said Tyson, nodding even as he readied his own blade. "Oh, did this, they didn't even try to take this from me. Morons."

Too moronic. "Never overestimate your opponent, Tyson."

"Yeah yeah, Captain."

Once they both had their blades loaded and their fingers in their ears, Ayah nodded and moved up to the door. She took a deep breath before slipping through and snapping it closed behind her.


	14. A Blast of Dragon Numbness

**Since this chapter is so small, and is technically suppose to be the end of chapter 11, I'm posting it up early. ^.^ Next week shall be the next book! :D Let me know what you think so far, it's been a blast!**

12

She let out a familiar shrill, blood curdling shriek. Even with the heavy wood door and their ears blocking it, Kai could still feel his bones rattle. He heard ringing after he had pulled his fingers out.

He leapt up the stairs in two bounds, Tyson on his tail. He pushed open the door right as Ayah pulled, and he came within inches of her face. Without a word, she turned and started across a deck that looked to be only a fraction of the size of the freight they had come off. Two metal sailing masts rose from the center, though they were small for sails, and the cabin at the other end rose two stories above deck level.

A dozen or so bodies hunched over, variating between rain coats and some dark uniform not unlike the two men who had trapped them. Several held weapons looking far too much like shotguns for comfort.

Just as they sprinted past the second mast, a smack of gunshot split the air. Something hard whizzed past his shoulder. Before his next step had landed, Kai had a hold of the back of Ayah's shirt. The next, they were both behind a large, wooden crate, which Tyson slid behind a moment later, when two more gunshots cracked.

Tyson let out a snarled explicit.

"Move," Kai growled, all but throwing Kai besides Ayah in order to get to the edge of the crate, which he cautiously leaned out from. He jerked back as a small explosion sprayed wood chips towards his face. A thin, metallic dart stuck into the underside of the guardrail of the ship, feather quivering.

"Well, at least they're not trying to kill us," said Tyson.

"We don't know that yet," said Kai harshly, pulling his bey launcher up. He only had a fraction of a second to take aim before tearing the silver beyblade loose. Then he jerked back and concentrated. His efforts were rewarded by a scream of pain and the thump of a body hitting deck. Just one body.

Kai cursed and his beyblade zipped back behind the crate, along with much nearer sounding gunshots. Another silver dart appeared in the railing. If he stood up to breathe fire, they'd hit him. If Ayah tried anything, it would affect Tyson and Kai too.

Perhaps, if they were just intent on throwing darts…there was no telling how they'd escape even once they had a boat. They could be shot then. Perhaps they should wait until land?

"Just the girl," shouted a voice, as though in answer to Kai's thoughts.

"But, the fire—"

"We only need sound! Kill the boys!"

"Well, there goes that thought," said Tyson, the visibly paling.

Kai didn't waste time responding. He leaned out, spied the closing targets, and let loose. A dart dug itself into his shoulder just as he jerked back, hissing. In a flash Ayah was on him, tearing it out.

"Oh no you don't," Tyson muttered, leaning out as well and letting Dragoon loose. Wood shrapnel showered overhead.

"No!" Kai tore him back, just as three new holes appeared in the siding besides them. He could see the ocean's waves through them.

Tyson had his eyes clenched shut, probably micmicking Kai. "Go, Dragoon! Save us!"

Kai swore again. It had taken him months to perfect blind blading, and that had been with Dranzer to help. But just as he thought to lean out again, despite the growing numbness spreading from his shoulder, he heard another man give a pained shout.

"Screw this," Tyson suddenly spat, and rolled to his feet.

Kai nearly choked. For a frozen moment in time, he looked up at Tyson, his black hair and features highlighted in white-blue from the ship's deck lights. A dark, starless sky stared down on him.

And then Kai was up, throwing himself before Tyson just as several guns fired. Three mirroring punches of pain nailed into Kai's chest and side, just as he brought his own beyblade around and Tyson let out a roar. Brilliant blue flooded the deck, bleeding through the artificial white spotlights. Several let out shouts of alarm.

The silver Dranzer zipped out at half strength, and Kai landed in a half curl on his side. His arm hit the silver darts out from his rib cage, but he could already feel that lung seizing up and numbness prickling up to his neck.

Ayah opened her mouth, and he expected her to call his name, but instead a stranger sound came out, like a violin's strings warbling on the brink of snapping. She tugged the last dart from his chest and pulled him closer, arms wrapping tight about his head.

The dark sky above grew bluer. Dragoon's familiar roar filled the brine-heavy air. Thuds echoed through Kai's skull, sounding ever more distant. Everything was spinning, blackening, vanishing. He was vanishing.

Tyson let out one last roar cry before an irresistible darkness swallowed Kai whole.


End file.
